From the Cupboard to the Castle (and Back Again)
by waitingondaisies
Summary: The story of how one Harry Potter was whisked away from a life of drudgery, pain, and neglect by the Princess Ginevra (but call her Ginny) with the help of Hermione, Daphne, and Harry's Fairy Dogfather. If only he could bring himself to actually believe it was true and that he deserved it.
1. Chapter 1

Harry woke with a start. He hastily rolled over to check the watch that he kept hidden under his measly stack of clothes; the face of the watch had been smashed by his cousin, Dudley, years ago and Harry had smuggled it away. Somehow, it still worked despite the smashed face and the years that had passed, and why it still functioned was a mystery to Harry.

Odd little things like that were commonplace for Harry. For instance, he kept a tiny stub of a candle in his cupboard for purposes such as this one, and despite months of continued use, the candle was still useable. It had been nearly completely burnt out when it'd come into his possession, and yet here it was, still useable.

He finally managed to light the candle with a match and was able to see the watch to check it. Thankfully, the watch confirmed that he had continued his streak of managing to wake up early enough to get a head start on the food for the day. Occasionally, he slept in long enough that Petunia had to wake him up. Those were terrible days.

Harry sighed to himself and dismissed this useless train of thought.

He got undressed, carefully folding and stowing the apparel. Really, the clothes he slept in were hardly fit to be called clothes, since they were the rags that even Harry deemed unfit for daily apparel. But they were all he had, and they did their job adequately enough. Thankfully, though the clothes he was now pulling on were hardly any better, they were good enough that he could go out in public in them.

Fully dressed, Harry stepped out his cupboard, making sure to close the door very carefully, as the door was directly under the stairs. From this location, sound carried easily up the stairs and into his relatives' bedrooms. And the last thing he wanted to do was wake them up early.

Walking into the kitchen, Harry began to mentally plan the meals for the day. Since many of the meals Petunia approved of required hours of preparation, he had to start making them early in the morning to be done in time for dinner.

Breakfast and lunch were much easier– he could make hotcakes and eggs and bangers in his sleep, and lunch was usually something light, like soups or sandwiches.

Harry made it to the kitchen, and opened the cold box, a luxury item enchanted to keep food cold for days. He wasn't sure how the Dursley's had afforded it, but it simultaneously made his life easier and more unpleasant.

Because they were able to keep meat fresh for days at a time, he no longer had to make near daily trips to the market. This gave him more time to complete his chores, but also greatly restricted his chances to see his only friends.

He pulled out the ingredients for the bread he made daily, and for pot roast, the dish he'd decided on for dinner, and began cooking.

Despite being the one to make all the food, Harry rarely got the chance to actually taste the results. Vernon and Dudley were fond of ensuring that there were no leftovers for Harry to eat, and the few times he'd tried to make simply too much for the two to eat, he'd been made to regret it– and not gotten to eat any of the leftovers.

After his parents died in a carriage crash, he'd been sent to live with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, and his life had gone downhill from there. For as long as Harry could remember, he'd been treated as a slave to the Dursley family. His life revolved around cooking and cleaning for them. And doing his best to avoid pissing Vernon off enough to earn himself a beating, he mentally added as he absent-mindedly rubbed at the nearly-healed belt mark on his ribs. This particular beating had been for making ham for dinner, when Vernon had wanted turkey a couple weeks ago.

Apparently, Vernon had mentioned it before he'd left work that day, but Harry knew that Vernon had simply been looking for an excuse to vent his frustration at the safest available source: Harry.

After beatings like that one, pointless ones that Harry didn't deserve, when he was laying alone in his cupboard nursing the wounds, he would dream of escaping. Of picking up and leaving and never coming back. Those dreams never lasted long. Harry had no money, no education, no talent. If he left, he'd find himself on the street, bereft of even the occasional meal, hand-me-down rags, and dry place to sleep that he received here.

Harry supposed that endless servitude and irregular beatings were a price he was willing to pay to avoid that fate.

He put the bread in the oven and set the pot roast to cook slowly in his pre-made marinade. Then he went to collect the ingredients for breakfast. He'd decided on omelets- and started cracking eggs.

As he was removing the omelets from the pan and putting them on plates, Petunia swept into the kitchen. Harry finished arranging the omelet on the plate, and turned to face her, though he was careful not to look her in the eye. Gaze focused on her waist, Harry said, "Breakfast is almost served Miss Petunia, if you'd just take a seat, I'll bring it to you."

She liked to think of herself as some sort of queen and too good to be looked to have the likes of him look her in the eye. Her insistence on this had come in handy more than once for Harry, when his eyes would have revealed his true thoughts and landed him in trouble, but keeping his gaze fixed anywhere other than her face kept her from noticing his mutinous gaze.

Harry could feel her sharp eyes scanning the kitchen and his appearance, looking for anything she could call him out on to get him into trouble. His stomach flipped and he clenched his hands into fists, as he remembered the dishes still sitting in the sink from marinating the pot roast.

Petunia cleared her throat pointedly, wordlessly telling Harry that she had spotted his failure. He shifted anxiously and forced himself to unclench his fists. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten the dishes like that, but before he could manage to put together an excuse or apology, Petunia said, "I'll be in the dining room. You will set the table for breakfast, then come back here clean up this mess. You can forget about getting breakfast."

Honestly, it was a better verdict than Harry could have hoped for, especially since Harry had long had the habit of sneaking some of the food he was cooking as he cooked it. The last time Harry had failed to make sure the kitchen was completely tidy by the time Petunia woke up, she had alerted Vernon, and nothing good had come of that. Whatever her reason for deciding to handle the situation herself, Harry was glad she had.

Petunia had swept out of the kitchen and into the dining room, which was the cue for Harry to bring the breakfast platters in after her.

Following her carefully, she took her seat as he began setting the table. After he set all the necessary plates down, he asked Petunia, "Do you need anything, or may I go get the condiments and beverages?"

Petunia pursed her lips, and Harry crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that she allowed him to escape to the kitchen before she found something to get him trouble for- or worse, Vernon came down before he finished setting the table with breakfast.

He had the fleeting thought that this was why she had let him off so easily about the dishes: because she had planned to delay him long enough for Vernon to get mad at him anyways.

With a sour look on her face, Petunia motioned sharply at the door to the kitchen, and Harry exhaled sharply in relief.

He was incredibly grateful to be wrong but felt no remorse at misjudging Petunia. She could just as easily have left him to the shark known as Vernon Dursley and would likely do so in the future.

Once in the kitchen, Harry collected the rest of the things that the Dursley's would need for breakfast and made his way back to the dining room. Petunia had her nose buried in the daily newspaper- an owl must have come and dropped it off while he'd been in the kitchen– so Harry was able to deposit his load on the table and make a quick getaway.

As Harry was finishing up the dinner preparations and clearing up his mess from everything, he heard the Dursley men join Petunia in the dining room. The snatches of their conversation made Harry quite glad that he wasn't forced to be in the room with them, because he would likely have done something, like laugh in their faces at their stupidity or fall asleep from boredom, and invite Vernon's wrath. Which was something he very much needed to avoid doing today, since he'd messed up once already.

He moved onto cleaning the dishes in the sink once he was done wiping the counters. This gave him a clear view of the back garden out the window, and he noted that he needed to go through and weed again soon. Gardening was one of his favorite chores to do because it kept him well out of the way of the Dursley's. They hated being outside so they rarely ventured out to harass him, and there was something pleasant about being outside with just the plants for company.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sharp sound of something shattering in the dining room where the Dursley's were finishing up breakfast, and Harry's heart sunk.

Thankfully, he still had the presence of mind to gently set the dish he was cleaning down. He could only imagine Vernon's reaction if, in Harry's efforts to clean up one broken dish, he broke another. Then he rushed to the dining room, grabbing a rag as he went.

Looking around, Harry was able to spot the mess immediately and hurried over to it, falling to his knees to gather the shards of what appeared to be a teacup from the fine china set.

How the fine chine set had even been in danger was a mystery to Harry, since he'd laid out the everyday set, but he pushed the useless thoughts away as cleaned the mess as quickly as he could. The glance he'd thrown at Vernon as Harry had rushed into the room had told him that Vernon was in a foul mood. His speed came at the cost of collecting a mass of nicks on his hands where he grabbed the pieces.

It didn't take long for Harry to finish collecting the shards, carefully keeping his blood off anything but himself, but his efforts weren't enough.

As soon as he'd gotten down to clean the mess, he'd sensed the massive presence of Vernon behind him, and once he finished, a large hand grabbed him by his upper arm and whirled him around into the wall. The large hand remained in place, pressing Harry's shoulder into the wall with such force that Harry knew it would bruise.

"How _dare_ you. That was a piece of the fine china that's been in Petunia's family for _generations_ and is worth more than your _life_," Vernon ground out, swelling with rage and his face changing rapidly in color from a crimson red to a horrid shade of puce.

Harry started trembling with fear. His hands were still bleeding sluggishly, despite his efforts to stop the bleeding by pressing his palms against his pants. A distant part of his mind was terribly bewildered at how the glass was broken, but he knew that protesting his innocence would make no difference. Vernon was clearly itching to take something out on him, and anything he said would likely be used to further justify Vernon's actions.

So, he stood in silence while Vernon continued his nonsensical rant and waited with mounting heart-rate for the order to go out back that preceded most beatings. He wasn't absolutely certain it was coming, but it had been so long since the last time it had happened, that Harry felt a certain inevitability about it.

After a period of time measured only by the decreasing space between his own heartbeats, Vernon released Harry's shoulder and pointed in the general direction of the back of the house with a quivering finger and commanded Harry to wait for him outside.

Harry hoped that Vernon wouldn't take too long to follow him out back and get the ordeal over with. Most of the time, Harry was still expected to complete all his chores, regardless of how long Vernon took or if Harry was released from the beating promptly afterwards, so if Vernon took too long, Harry would find himself in trouble again.

He settled in to wait, sitting cross legged on the grass that covered the lawn beyond the garden. He wasn't far from the tree that Vernon liked to use as a whipping post. Harry did his best to distract himself from what was going to happen by occupying his thoughts with the humor of Vernon's absolutely hating the outdoors and absolutely hating Harry, but still choosing to go outside to deal with Harry. He knew that this was because Vernon didn't want to disturb Petunia or Dudley, but he preferred to think of it as two negatives making a positive. For Vernon, that is.

Eventually, Vernon must have gotten bored of making Harry wait. As Vernon stomped over to where Harry was waiting, Harry noticed that Vernon's face was once again its normal shade of carnation pink. Then Harry's heart well and truly plummeted when he saw the whip Vernon held in one hand and the coil of rope in the other.

Harry sprung to his feet and hurried over to stand next to the tree with his heart in his throat. It had been several weeks since Vernon had been angry enough to bother with the whip and rope. Without waiting for Vernon to tell him to, Harry began to strip off his shirt, in the vain hope that it would please Vernon and make him go easier on Harry. Then he turned to face the tree and put his hands on the cross-post that Vernon had taken great pleasure in ordering him to nail to the tree at just the right height.

It had been a couple years ago when Vernon had issued the order, saying that Harry was finally old enough to take a 'real beating'.

His train of thought came to an abrupt halt when Vernon tied his hands to the post.

And then, the beating began.

He heard the whip whistling through the air and attempted to relax his muscles so the impact of the whip left less damage, but there was only so much he could do to fight his natural human instinct. Inevitably, the whip cracked against his back, and Harry sucked in a breath.

He let it out slowly as Vernon wound up again. He should have known that it would be like this when Vernon had come out of the house looking so calm. Vernon rarely took his time and put all his strength behind each and every blow, resting just enough to prolong the beating by a few painful lashes, but the couple times in the past that he had had left Harry aching for weeks.

Time began to blur together.

Harry felt a drop of sweat crawl down his face.

He heard a bug buzz around his back. He hoped absently that it would clear out before Vernon killed it.

He heard the whistle of the whip time and time again, heard the thud from its impact.

But it was like he wasn't there.

The blessed detachment wouldn't last for long, and Harry eventually came back to himself. He tasted blood and realized that he'd nearly pierced his lip biting down on it to prevent any sound from escaping. This was about the only thing he could control, and Harry got some cheap satisfaction from refusing to give Vernon the satisfaction of knowing how much he hurt Harry.

Eventually, he heard the glorious sound of Vernon throwing down the whip, panting heavily from the effort.

He moved around the tree, making eye contact with Harry as Vernon spat, "You're damn lucky Petunia stepped in, else I'd have just snapped your neck for what you did, you _useless_, worthless _freak_."

It seemed that Harry had missed Petunia's intervention. He wondered what had driven her to intervene, but didn't waste any energy on being thankful to her. He knew that she would have had her reasons that didn't have anything to do with sparing Harry from pain.

After a moment's thought, Harry decided that she must have intervened to stop Vernon from escalating to murdering Harry. Because despite his low status in life, there were people that knew him– like Hermione and Daphne– and they would notice and raise a ruckus if he went missing. And murder is murder, regardless of the class of the person murdered. And Petunia was smart enough to know this, so she'd stepped in to stop Vernon from landing himself in prison.

Before he left, Vernon spat at Harry, luckily just missing his face, and stalked into the house.

Several minutes later, during which Harry had hung motionless from his bonds, he began to regret doing so much prep this morning. It wasn't like he'd had a choice, but still. His efforts would make it incredibly simple for Petunia to make meals for the rest of the day, and even for tomorrow.

And, since she had interfered to stop Vernon from murdering Harry, she would probably want to keep Harry out of Vernon's way, to prevent Vernon from becoming murderous again. It could be hours, if not days, until she freed Harry.

* * *

Despite the fact that the bonds had somehow loosened just the tiniest bit, enough to allow some blood flow, Harry was still inescapably trapped and unbearably uncomfortable.

It had been at least five hours since Vernon had gone into the house, judging by the position of the sun and the noises Harry could occasionally hear from the residents of the house. Harry was focused intently on fiddling with the knot by his hands in the vague hope that he could loosen them further, when he heard an unexpected sound: the doorbell was ringing.

Harry turned his attention from his hands, where it'd been directed for quite some time now, to the conversation that would soon take place.

Fortunately for Harry's purposes, it was summer, and every window in the house had been thrown wide open to tempt a breeze in.

After a few more rings, seemingly the mystery visitor was quite impatient, Harry heard the door open. This sound was closely followed by Petunia's annoyed voice asking, "What do you want at this hour?"

So it must be later than Harry had thought it was. The sun stayed in the sky for so long that it was hard to tell.

A deep, slightly pompous, voice replied, "I am here by order of the King and Queen. All eligible young men and women, between the ages of 17 and 22, are henceforth invited to a royal ball. The princess, her royal highness Ginevra Weasley, is soon to be of age and is looking for a spouse among the Kingdom's citizens. The ball will commence on Saturday, the 3rd of September, at 8 in the evening and will last all night. Of course, the parents of the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes are also invited to attend."

It sounded to Harry as if the poor guard delivering the message was exhausted. He spoke faster and faster as he went, and his voice had no inflection at all.

After the guard finished speaking, Harry heard Petunia thank him, and the sound of her closing the door.

The next thing Harry heard was Petunia loudly telling Vernon to read something. Harry assumed that the guard must have given her a written copy of the invitation. Then, to Harry's relief, he heard Petunia to tell Vernon that he ought to go relax in his study. Harry assumed that this meant Petunia intended to release Harry.

Even though the immediate consequence of the invitation had been his release, Harry was now more concerned than ever for his general well-being. The Dursley's would surely be trying to get the Princess to marry Dudley, and when they inevitably failed, the fall out would be distinctly bad for Harry's health.

Harry shook his head to clear it and closed his eyes. He did his best to ignore the pain radiating from his back so he could enjoy what would likely be the last few calm moments he'd have for the next month.

* * *

The next day, Petunia completely banned him from the kitchen, as some revenge for being forced to release him early the previous day. She rarely did this because doing so meant she had to do work that Harry ordinarily did, thus hurting her in addition to hurting Harry, but he supposed that, this time the pros outweighed the cons.

Harry's stomach grumbled loudly as he mowed the front lawn. It had been several meals since Petunia had banned him from the kitchen, and with no end in sight, Harry was rapidly weakening.

To avoid thinking about his current circumstances, Harry allowed himself to drift off into his memories- mowing the lawn was one of those chores that required practically no mental input.

Perhaps because of the hunger he could feel clawing at his insides, his mind chose this particular memory.

Once, several years ago, Harry had been sent to the market on a particularly nasty day to purchase groceries for the Dursley household. It was back before they had purchased the ice box, so Harry hadn't yet felt the need to ensure he saw Hermione every time he came to the market. Especially since he didn't want her to feel obligated to join him in the cold, misty weather.

He had finished purchasing the groceries and was making his way back to the Dursley's house, when he saw, through the haze of the persistent mist, a child huddling under a tree.

Despite the slow rate of rainfall, it had been misting for long enough that the tree no longer provided shelter from the rain, and the child was soaked and chilled to the bone. Looking back, Harry could recognize that he had hardly been in better shape than she had been, nor had he been much older, but at the time he'd felt as though he were significantly better off and older.

He had slowly approached the child, careful not to frighten her, and had asked, "What are you doing out here in this kind of weather?"

The child had jumped at the sound of his voice and Harry had grimaced at his failure to avoid scaring her.

"Don't have anywhere else to go," the child had responded flatly, after she had steadied herself against the tree.

Harry had hoped she was simply lost, but it had seemed he was not the only one with abysmal luck. By then, Harry had come close enough to see that she was shaking almost violently, most likely due to the cold. Then had he caught sight of the thin wrists she had wrapped around her body, and had a sinking feeling that she was shaking from hunger too.

"How long has it been since you've eaten?" Harry had asked, refusing to be deterred by her standoffishness.

"Dunno. Maybe a day or two. Had a piece of toast at the market on Sunday," she had replied again, with no more inflection than she had had before.

It had been Tuesday, so it had been a couple days since she'd even had toast. Harry had looked down at the bags of produce he was carrying and steeled himself to do what he knew was the right thing to do.

He had pulled out the bunch of bananas he'd intended to make banana bread with and offered them to her. She snatched them out of his hand and scuttled away from him, out of arm's reach, as if he would change his mind and take them back at any moment.

His gut had twisted with empathy.

She had already opened the ripest banana of the lot when she had paused and said, "I can't pay you back for this, you know."

"I know," Harry had agreed quietly.

He had been avoiding watching her eat the banana, when a thought had suddenly occurred to him. With nobody in the world to take care of her, she really would have been better off at the orphanage. Even if all the horror stories Vernon had liked to tell him were true.

"Actually, there is one thing you can do for me," he had said in a rush, determined to ignore the frightened look that had crossed her face, "go to the orphanage. No, listen, just go and try it out for a little while, and if it's terrible, just run away. But at least go and try it," he had finished lamely.

The girl had eyed him warily while she finished another banana. Once it was gone, she had nodded curtly and said, "Alright."

Harry had released a sigh of relief at her acquiescence, relieved that she would at least soon be out of the rain. "I have to go now," he had told her, turning away to get back on the road.

She had called after him that he had forgotten the remaining bananas, but Harry had done that meant to do that, knowing that she had needed them more than him.

He forced his mind back to the present, before his mind could follow the memory to its conclusion. The Dursley's had not been happy that he had come back with a receipt for bananas, but no bananas in sight. He had considered getting rid of the receipt, but the missing money would have been just as incriminating. The punishment had fit the crime, and he had ended up as hungry then as he was now.

He glumly got up from where he had stowed the grass cutter away underneath a shelf in the shed, patiently waiting for the spots to clear from his vision, before he headed back into the house. Maybe, he thought as he walked, Petunia would finally allow him in the kitchen again.

* * *

It was a couple of weeks since the Dursley household had received the invitation to the ball. He had not had a moment of rest since being cut down from the tree by Petunia; he had been kept incredibly busy taking measurements, running errands, generally maintaining the household, and being a carrier pigeon for the Dursley's and their gossip network.

Most nights, Harry ended up falling asleep before his head hit the folded-up rags he used as a pillow. Today was the first day in weeks that he had had enough energy to lie awake on his cot under the stairs and think.

Inevitably, his thoughts took him to the ball, since his life had been utterly consumed by it for so long.

Harry knew it was pointless to even imagine going; the Dursley's would die before they let him go to something so enjoyable that would simultaneously involve being seen in public with him, but he couldn't help but imagine what it would be like.

He'd heard that the castle was stunning on any normal occasion, and it was sure to be even more amazing on the day that the kingdom's beloved princess sought her life-companion.

His thoughts turned to the royal family next. The princess Ginevra was the youngest of seven children, but she was the only daughter that King Arthur and Queen Molly had had and Harry could only imagine the celebrations following her birth.

The King and Queen were beloved by all in the Kingdom, in part because they believed in autonomy and choices for their subjects. Luckily for their children, this belief extended to them as well.

Prince Bill, the oldest, had renounced his heirship and left to be a curse-breaker in a far-off land. Prince Charlie, the next oldest, had also renounced the heirship when it was passed to him by Prince Bill; his interests lie in caring for Dragons.

For a while, it had seemed as though Prince Percy would be the next King of the country, but then he disappeared after a state function.

The citizens only found out about this when the letter he left behind was published in the papers- it turned out that he had fallen in love with Crown Princess Audrey of France and they had eloped together. Since Princess Audrey was an only child, he renounced his heirship to the crown of England, and became the Prince Consort of France.

Nobody had ever seriously thought that Prince Fred or Prince George would hold onto the heirship. It had been clear since they were children that their interest lay in making people laugh, and in a move surprising no one, departed the castle to open their joke shop soon after they came of age.

When they left, the heirship fell on Prince Ron, and he took up the mantle with grace. He was well known for his strategic mind and his fairmindedness. The citizens of England had nothing to worry about when it came time for King Arthur to pass on his crown, and it was clear from the general cheer of the country that the citizens knew that.

Because of the sheer number of Weasley's, there was little concern about the line ending, and therefore little reason to marry Princess Ginevra off to some random foreign Prince. And, given that England was currently at peace with most of its neighbor's, they also had no need of the treaty a marriage with a foreign dignitary would provide. All this added to extraordinary freedom for the Princess to choose her partner.

Since there was clearly a ball being held, and since each citizen within a few years of the Princess's age was expected to attend, it was clear that the Princess would be looking for her match among her own Kingdom's citizens.

Harry knew that Hermione and Daphne were planning on going to the ball because he'd had the luck to run into the two of them when he was dropping off the Dursley's dress robes for adjustments, and they'd taken the time they were in line to discuss the ball. Mostly, it was Daphne trying to convince Harry to try and sneak out to go, but Harry knew that it just wasn't worth the risk of being caught.

For some reason, though, Daphne kept insisting that the Princess deserved to meet Harry. And that by not letting him go, the Dursleys' were somehow restricting her choices. Harry had been unable to stop himself from letting out a short laugh at that. The thought that he would even be an option for the Princess was nothing short of ridiculous.

He ignored the small part of his mind that insisted that, as a part-time companion for the Princess, Daphne would know what she was talking about.

Harry knew, without a doubt in his mind, that he was utterly worthless. He wasn't particularly smart, so it wasn't like he'd be able to make the next great invention. He had no magical power, and all the Weasley's- by blood or by marriage- were well-known for their magical prowess. He wasn't attractive and he wasn't funny, he really wasn't even all that likable, otherwise why would the Dursley's- no. He stopped this train of thought in its tracks.

Altogether, he had no useful skills, making him useless for anything but menial chores. There was clearly nothing about him that would make him even a remote possibility to become the next Prince. And, even if by some chance he happened to meet the Princess, he would never even _want_ to be considered. She deserved better than him, and so did the Kingdom.

He also ignored the feeling that he was being awfully defensive about his lack of suitability to be the prince.

Harry rolled over so he was facing the spot on the wall where his hand-drawn picture of the castle would be. Though he had never seen it himself, he had liked to imagine it as a child and the paper contained his childish imaginings that he'd scratched onto paper using Dudley's quickly discarded pencils.

Harry heaved a sigh. It was rare, even ordinarily when he had more time to himself, that he allowed himself to be so self-absorbed.

He supposed that all the thoughts had built up while he was so busy, and honestly, it didn't hurt him that much to let himself be self-absorbed occasionally, here in the privacy of his cupboard.

Harry sighed again. He could admit to himself that he was sad that he wouldn't get to be at the ball; it was certain to be fun and magical and everything his everyday life was not.

A few seconds later, Harry realized that going to the ball didn't necessarily have to entail meeting the Princess or even joining in the main festivities. It wouldn't hurt anyone if he were to slip out of the house after the Dursley's left. And it would get Daphne, and Hermione, since it was clear she agreed with Daphne, off his back for refusing to even try to go.

Harry rolled onto his back and stared blankly upwards. Could he do it? Probably, yes. Could he do it without being caught? Less likely, but still possible. Could he live with consequences of being caught?

Harry shuddered and reached out a gentle hand to glance off the picture on the wall. He held the image he knew was depicted in the picture in his mind before allowing the memories of past punishments to sweep it away.

This left him shaken, but certain that, yes. He could live with the consequences.

It was decided then. Harry would go to the ball

* * *

AN: please review!


	2. Chapter 2

A few days after Harry's bout of introspection, he got a chance to follow up on his decision. The Dursley's had received notice that their robes were done being altered and were ready for pick up and Harry was now on his way to town to pick them up.

On his way to the tailor's, Harry stopped in the bookstore to see if Hermione and Daphne were in. Normally, because the nature of the errand, picking up robes, was so quick and easy, Harry wouldn't have stopped. Unless an errand was supposed to take enough time, it wasn't worth it for him to stop, because he wouldn't get to see Hermione and Daphne for very long at all, and because stopping would take time and if he took too long, the Dursley's would catch on and Harry did not want that to happen.

But because the Ball was rapidly approaching, things were a bit different than normal. The tailor was busier than ever which, Harry had heard from Petunia's gossip network, had led to increasing delays in service. This meant that the Dursley's expected this errand to take an inordinate amount of time and that Harry had enough time that stopping for Hermione and Daphne was worth it. And the Ball's increasing proximity also meant that the Dursley's were also getting busier and therefore paid less attention to Harry than normal, which was a situation Harry was incredibly fond of.

Of course, those times that they did pay attention tended to end worse for him than usual, Harry thought, rubbing his aching ribs ruefully.

Pushing open the door to the bookstore, Harry couldn't help but feel out of place, as usual.

The door opened into a small oasis devoid of bookshelves. The sheer quantity of books present filled the air with the smell of leather and paper. Off to one side of the bookstore was a nook where customers could read their purchases, and as Harry stepped further into the store, the heads of the few patrons present all turned to glance at him, making Harry feel even more out of place.

The moment passed, and they all thankfully returned to their books. Harry walked as quietly as he could manage to the counter, and whispered, "Excuse me, Mr. Granger, is Hermione around? And Daphne?"

"You know, son, you don't have to whisper, this isn't a library after all. And I've definitely told you to call me Dan," he paused and smiled kindly at Harry.

Harry nodded nervously and said, "Sorry, sir, I just forgot."

Mr. Granger sighed, then continued, "Anyways, they are here, and I'll just call them down for you." Then he disappeared through an unobtrusive door behind the counter.

Harry sighed with relief. He really wished that physically imposing men didn't make him as anxious as they did, but Mr. Granger was very tall, and Harry couldn't help his reaction.

A few minutes later, Hermione and Daphne burst out of the door behind the counter and rushed out towards Harry. Hermione immediately jumped Harry, grabbing him into a painful embrace. Doing his best to hide his grimace, Harry gently plied her arm's off him.

Before Daphne could say something, and to distract Hermione from the hurt that his rejection had caused and that was beginning to show on her face, Harry said, "Listen, the Dursley's robes are ready for pick-up, so I'm in town to go get them, but everybody knows the line to pick up robes is ages long, so I thought we could hang out while I picked them up?"

"Yeah that sounds great! We just got the notice that our robes are ready for pick-up too, so we can grab ours at the same time" Daphne exclaimed happily, though she gave him a look that clearly said she hadn't forgotten the rejected hug- or the probable reason for it.

Hermione ran back behind the counter and through the door, and Harry and Daphne could hear her muffled voice yell, "Hey Dad! Daphne and I are going with Harry to the tailor's, we'll be back soon!"

She burst back through the door and grabbed their arms to drag them towards the door. Harry noticed that her grip on his arm was particular loose. "I know the Dursley's are probably tracking the time and you lost some coming to get us, so we should hurry there, but while we're walking, we can talk and catch up," Hermione said with a rush.

"Well I really don't have much to catch you up on," Harry said, reaching back with his free hand to catch the bookstore door as he walked through it to prevent it from slamming. Then he added, "But I'd love to hear what's been going on in your lives!"

Daphne gave Hermione a coy look and slipped her hand into Hermione's, "Well, one interesting development is that we both now have dates."

Harry shot them a pleased look, glad that they seemed so pleased about the development.

As they walked down the street, Harry listened to Hermione babble, with the occasional input from Daphne, about how they'd gotten together and how romantic their first date had been.

Much too soon, they arrived at the tailor's, which was just down the street from the bookstore. The shop itself was tiny, so there was little room to wait inside. At least, that's what Harry told himself as he looked at the incredibly long line, because if it were any longer than it appeared, he was going to be late to get back in getting back to the Dursley's.

Queueing up behind the last person in line, Harry shoved these thoughts out of his mind, and turned his gaze back to Hermione and Daphne's clasped hands. Giving them a crooked smile, Harry said, "I'm really happy that you guys are happy and that your first date went so well!"

"We are and it was," Hermione said with a wide grin on her face, "But, as exciting as our development is, you know we want to hear if you've decided to go to the Ball."

Looking around, Harry saw that everybody around was clearly distracted, and that nobody was listening.

In a hushed voice, Harry said, "Look, I gave it some thought, and it probably wouldn't hurt for me to at least go to explore the castle. But I have no idea how I'm going to do it yet. I need dress robes and a way to get there at the very least."

Harry, Hermione, and Daphne began shooting ideas back and forth as the line slowly drew nearer to the shop entrance. Harry was glad that they knew him well enough not to offer to buy him robes or a way to the castle, because he would have had to say no, and then would have felt guilty for saying no.

But not guilty enough to accept charity.

The ideas that they did come up with varied from the absolutely ridiculous, complete a rain ritual to turn dirt into silk that Daphne thought she remembered hearing about, to the straight up illegal, steal all the materials and a broomstick to ride to the castle.

They had to reject just about everything that they came up with for various reasons, but one thing they did agree on was that it would almost certainly be easier for Harry to get his hands on the materials for the robes and make them himself than it would be for him to find an already complete set of robes.

Finally, the three of them reached the shop entry. As Harry had hoped, the line did begin at the door.

Taking the last few steps to reach the counter and desperately avoiding eye contact, Harry said, "I'm, uh, here to pick up some um, robes for the D-Dursley's."

The man behind the counter smiled kindly, and said, "Sure thing, I believe I just saw them." Then he disappeared into the back of the shop.

Harry absolutely hated interacting with strangers. He got terrible anxiety that anyone he was speaking to would discover how badly he was treated at the Dursley's. Unfortunately for Harry, the way the Dursley's treated him was technically legal, so it wasn't as if the legality of his treatment was what made Harry worry about it being discovered.

No, what actually worried him about his treatment being discovered, was everyone in town knowing what the Dursley's did to him and everyone in town deciding that Harry clearly deserved to be treated the way he was.

His worst nightmare was everyone he interacted with treating him like the Dursley's did.

As visions of a world where everyone despised his existence flashed through, his breathing and heart rate sped up.

Distantly, as if watching it happen in a painting, Harry saw Hermione and Daphne shared a concerned look. Then, Hermione gently grasped Harry's hand and led him outside the shop. They sat down on a nearby bench away from all the people queued up, and just sat quietly.

Harry was glad for Hermione's calming presence and her tight but gentle grip on his hand. It helped him remember that his fears were mostly irrational, and he slowly began to calm himself down.

* * *

Inside the shop, Daphne had a fantastic idea. With Harry out of the way, she would be able to ask the shop assistant if they had any leftover material that they could give her or that she could buy for cheap. With Harry there, she wouldn't have risked it, because she knew that Harry objected strongly to charity.

Well, he did when the charity was for his own benefit. It was like he thought that he didn't deserve anything nice. Or that he had to earn every little thing that he received. For some reason, Harry seemed to view charity from strangers as bad, and charity from friends as worse. It was infuriating because Daphne just wanted to help, but at any hint of assistance, Harry got skittish, and she would have to drop it or risk not seeing Harry again.

Because the only time they managed to see Harry was when he dropped in to visit.

Bringing her mind back into the present, Daphne knew that regardless of how much she paid for any material the shop assistant might have, she would still tell Harry that it was free, because honestly, it was still going to be difficult to get him to take the material, assuming she got any. Even though Daphne had been the one to ask for the material, and Harry would think that she had gotten it for free, he would probably still view it as charity from Daphne. But she had hope that the situation was important enough that they had a chance of getting him to accept a little help, just this once.

Seconds later, the shop assistant came back through the doorway with his arms full of opulent looking robes. "Did you see where that young man went?" The shop assistant asked, peering around Daphne as if trying to see if Harry were hiding behind her.

"He stepped outside for a second and asked me to pick up the robes for him. I'm also here to pick up the robes for the Greengrass's," Daphne said.

"Well, here's these robes, and let me just pop back and grab the other ones for you," he said, turning to go back through the door.

"Wait!" Daphne stopped him, "Do you happen to have any scrap materials back there? Only, Harry, the young man I was with, wants to go to the ball, but he can't afford robes because his relatives don't treat him very well." She gave the shop keeper a significant look and raised her hand to fix her hair, hesitating with her hand over her eye just long enough to remind him of the fading bruise on Harry's face.

This was the most she was willing to do and say, since even this was violating Harry's trust.

The man put his hand on his chest and tsked. He said, "Of course I can find some spare material for the poor lad, we have loads of extras from all the robes we've had commissioned for the Ball. Here let me grab your robes for the Greengrass's and scrounge up some spare material."

"Thank you so, _so_ much," Daphne said with a relieved smile, "I can pay you something for the material, if you need me to."

"Oh, don't worry about it," the man called over his shoulder as he disappeared through the door, "We have lots back here that we'd just have to throw out."

Daphne breathed a sigh of relief, relieved that her idea had panned out. She felt a small pang of guilt about spreading Harry's business without his permission, but after a moment's consideration decided that it really was the best for him the long run. Especially since the shop assistant couldn't exactly do anything with the information; it wasn't like anyone knew who Harry was.

After a couple moments of waiting, Daphne started to get a bit impatient. The robes she was holding weren't exactly light, given the size of human they were designed to cover. Thankfully, it was only a couple moments after she had that thought, that the shop assistant reappeared with the Greengrass robes and some simple yet elegant looking dark green material along with some black scraps.

"Here's your robes and the material for that poor lad. I hope the color's alright, I chose it because I thought it'd bring out the color in his eyes," the shop assistant said handing Daphne the material along with the robes.

Daphne awkwardly extended her hands, which were holding the Dursley's robes, out as far as she could so the shop assistant could place her family's robes and the material on top of the stack.

"Thank you again, it really means a lot. Are you absolutely certain you don't want any payment?" Daphne asked. She wanted to be absolutely sure because she didn't want to risk him changing his mind at some point and causing trouble for Harry, somehow. Besides, it wasn't like she couldn't spare the money.

"No, really it's okay, that lad was so polite, and we've made a killing here because of the ball anyways. We can easily afford to donate a bit of material that we'd end up throwing out to such a worthy cause. I hope y'all have a good time at the ball!"

Daphne awkwardly shifted the piles of robes so she could sign the release forms for both the Greengrass's and the Dursley's robes. Then she gratefully bid the shop assistant a hasty farewell.

* * *

Hermione swung around to check for Daphne for what felt like the hundredth time and gave Harry's hand yet another squeeze. She desperately wanted to get out of there because she knew Harry hated feeling like a spectacle, and they got such limited time together as it was that she couldn't help but feel that helping Harry through a panic attack was a waste of their precious time together.

Not that she blamed him for having them, it was just frustrating to feel their precious time together slipping through her fingers as the moment when Harry would inevitably have to go back to those horrid Dursley's drew nearer.

Checking behind her yet again, Hermione's heart leapt as she saw Daphne hurry out of the store, her arms overloaded with garment bags and fabric.

"Help me with this stuff, will you?" Daphne asked, arriving next to Hermione and Harry's bench.

Harry jumped up from his seat, and Hermione gratefully followed.

"Here, why don't you set everything on the bench here and we can sort it all to make sure we don't have any mix-ups," Hermione said, brushing off a bit of dust from the edge of the bench.

There were three piles on the bench when Harry, Hermione, and Daphne had finished sorting everything. Hermione knew that one pile was obviously for the Dursley's and one was for the Greengrass's, so the third pile that was just dark green fabric along with some black scraps could not more obviously be meant for Harry's outfit.

Locking eyes with Daphne, Hermione snatched up the pile of the Dursley's robes at the same time that Daphne grabbed her family's. Harry paused, then grabbed the fabric since it was the only pile left on the bench.

"Um, Hermione, you uh grabbed my pile," Harry said hesitantly, gesturing with his arms full of fabric at the oversized garment bags that clearly held robes for Dudley and Vernon.

Daphne smiled at him and said, "Oh that's because you've got to carry your robes, Harry"

Harry looked confusedly down at the pile of fabric in his arms, but before he could say anything, Hermione cut in, "Daphne obviously must have asked the tailor for scraps; they must have given her those for you to make robes out of. You know, for the Ball."

He glanced back down at the robes with a new light in his eyes. Hermione liked to think she could see the designs coming together in his mind.

She knew that he was quite experienced with making his own clothes, or at least modifying Dudley's behemoth clothing to fit him. So, making dress robes should be within his skillset.

As they walked together back to the Granger's bookshop, Harry babbled about his plans for the material and Hermione smiled at the excitement that was clear in his voice.

Just before they got back to the bookshop, the clock in the town square began tolling the hour, and Harry panicked. Watching the transformation as he went from talking happily about his plans to panicking over the Dursley's was one of the more upsetting ones that Hermione had seen.

He snatched the Dursleys' robes out of Hermione's arms and took off towards the Dursley's house. "I have to go," he called back to Daphne and Hermione over his shoulder, "I'm so late!"

Hermione slowly lowered her arms from where they'd been extended to hold the Dursley's robes, and watched Harry dash off.

She hated when he had to leave in a hurry like that, because she always felt guilty for having kept him, and that whatever the Dursleys did to him was somewhat her fault because Harry wouldn't be so late if not for her.

Turning to face Daphne, who was standing beside her, Hermione opened her mouth to worry about Harry. But before she could, Daphne said, "You know we've been over this a million times; you have no culpability for what those demons do to Harry"

A ghost of a smile crossed Hermione's face at this reminder of how well Daphne knew her, but her guilt persisted. "And you know that I think there ought to be something I can do for him, find some legal loophole to get him out of there, raise the money to buy his freedom or set him up independently, something!"

Daphne grasped Hermione's shoulders, "You know you've been through the books a million times Hermione. While Harry's not technically a servant the Dursley's can claim him as one, making the chores he's forced to complete payment for their _care_." Daphne practically spat the word.

Then she continued on, "We know the Royal Family has been trying to pass laws regarding the treatment of children and servants, but they've had to be careful to not move too quickly lest they upset the airbags that the Royal Council is made of, so the beatings Harry gets are still perfectly legal punishment, especially given that they can't just dock his pay the way most servants are punished.

"And if Harry complains about it, he's now too old for the orphanage, and the Dursley's made damn sure he has no marketable talents. He'd be sentenced to a life on the streets. And there's only such we could do for him since we're still students ourselves, and without our own source of income. The best we can do is make sure we are well positioned to take him in as soon as he's of age. It's a damn shame my parents' title is ceremonial and utterly useless. If I were a real noble, I bet there'd be something I could actually do for him," Daphne bitterly concluded.

Hermione despondently nodded along to Daphne's speech. She already knew all this, and while it depressed her to hear how hopeless Harry's situation was for the time being, it did help to absolve her of some of the guilt she was feeling. And the hope of being able to do something in the future for Harry also helped a lot. She gave Daphne a heartfelt hug of thanks, she always knew just to say to help her feel better.

Then Hermione closely surveyed Daphne and frowned. "Don't tell me you're feeling guilty too," Hermione said, "You just told me why I shouldn't feel guilty, and all that applies to you too."

"I know," Daphne said. "It's just hard sometimes."

"It is, but one day we'll do something about it," Hermione said bolsteringly.

They were heading into Hermione's bedroom above the bookstore. Settling in, they sat in silence for a little while, just enjoying each other's company.

"Let's make a pact," Hermione said abruptly, "that if Harry still has no prospects when we graduate, we'll either buy his contract or whatever from the Dursley's or kidnap him together."

Daphne grinned and grabbed her hand, "That sounds like an excellent pact." She pulled out her wand and Hermione pulled out hers. They crossed their wands, non-wand hands still held, and swore the pact.

A bright flash filled the room with soft, golden light sealing their pact.

Once the light cleared, they put their wands away. And smiling hopefully, Hermione said, "And hey, maybe Harry will catch the eye of Ginny at the ball and be taken away from the Dursley's that way. He is, after all, quite the catch."

* * *

"You _useless_, ugly bastard, where the hell have you been," Petunia demanded, looking as though she would already have slapped him, had he been within reach. Harry disregarded the insults as he always did, they were true enough after all.

Harry carefully laid the robes, now stripped of their protective shells, beside Petunia, then stepped away from her hastily. He crossed his fingers behind is back, hoping the robes were acceptable, because if they weren't, he'd have to modify them himself, leaving no time for him to make his own robes from the material now carefully hidden in his cupboard.

He was grateful, in a slightly bitter way, that the Dursley's disdain for him had led them to shoving him away in a cupboard. Because if he'd been given a proper bedroom, there was no way he'd have been able to properly hide the material in time to prevent Petunia from discovering it. And if she discovered the material, she would certainly think that he had stolen it and would accordingly confiscate the material. And she would be on the alert for him to try to go to the Ball.

Petunia leaned down to carefully inspect each robe. With each passing second, Harry's frustration mounted higher. Petunia's pursed lips could mean annoyance at the loss of a chance to reprimand Harry, or distaste for the robe quality, it was impossible to tell.

Unless…sometimes when he was desperate enough, he managed to hear something that sounded a lot like Petunia's, or Vernon's, thoughts. He usually convinced himself that it was his imagination born of desperation, but sometimes Harry liked to pretend he had a latent talent for magic.

It was impossible of course, when he'd turned 11, he hadn't received a letter inviting him to train his magic at the exclusive institute of Hogwarts where all young magicals in England went to learn. And that was it for that particular fantasy.

If he had been magical, he would've been in the same class as Hermione and Daphne and Prince Ronald. He would have gotten to escape the Dursley's for at least 5 days a week, and if he'd been granted special dispensation to board at the school, for almost the entire year.

For a couple years after he'd turned eleven, he'd entertained daydreams where somebody came to the door holding a letter, explaining that his had simply been lost in the mail and he was actually magical after all.

Like most of his dreams, these died in the face of the harsh reality of his life.

"These are acceptable," Petunia said, snapping Harry out of his thoughts.

Harry imperceptibly sighed in relief, but before he could truly relax, Petunia continued, "There is still the matter of the time you wasted by dilly-dallying in town, however. There are many chores you were supposed to complete today that are sitting undone."

Harry smoothed a neutral mask over his features as annoyance set in. He hadn't been _that_ long in town, and Petunia had known full well that it would take Harry quite some time to pick up the robes, so she'd forced him to work harder than normal that morning to make up for the lost time. It seemed she was annoyed about something, though, and had decided to forget that that had happened.

Turning to leave the room, Harry thought longingly of the scrap materials he'd have no time to work on today and accepted the fact that tonight would be spent doing unfair and possibly unnecessary labor.

* * *

Harry was almost finished with cleaning the outside of the windows. This was a long and arduous task that involved a ladder, a soft cloth on a pole, and many bruises from falling off the ladder because no one held it still for him.

When he was nearly done, he heard Vernon come up the drive, so Harry quickly began another task. Vernon loved to seem him actively working, as much as Vernon could love anything, and Harry could use any chance to stock up on goodwill.

Several minutes after Vernon had come into the house, Harry finally heard Vernon headed towards him. Harry hadn't known for sure that Vernon would seek him out, but because he had, he could only assume that something had happened to piss him off at work and that he was coming to take it out on Harry. So he began scrubbing at the floor a little harder and stiffened when he heard the door to the parlor he was cleaning open.

"You're in luck today boy, Vernon closed a deal he's been working on for weeks today and he's in too good of a mood to ruin it with your face. You're to go to your cupboard now and Merlin help you if we hear one peep out of you for the rest of the night," Petunia said glaring at some point to the right of Harry making it obvious she couldn't even stand to look at him.

"Yes, Miss Petunia," Harry said, and began to gather up his cleaning materials.

"Leave those and get out of here," Petunia snapped, "you're just going to be cleaning in here tomorrow and I want you out of sight as soon as possible."

Harry set down everything he'd gathered and slid out of the room as fast as he could. He made it to his cupboard in peace and sat down gratefully on his cot. Now that he was alone, he could contemplate just how lucky he'd been.

Sure, he probably wasn't going to get any food tonight, but he also hadn't had to deal with an angry Vernon, and he'd been given time to be completely alone with minimal risk of interruptions– meaning he had a perfect opportunity to work on his robes for the Ball!

After resting for a few moments, Harry lit his remarkably long-lasting candle. Then he pulled out the material he'd been given and the small sewing kit he'd scrounged together over the years.

The only clothes he was given were Dudley's most violently mistreated castaways, so he'd had to learn a decent amount of sewing skills just to ensure he'd be somewhat presentable in public. And these skills would now be put to excellent use, if he did say so himself.

Grabbing the scissors, Harry settled down for the night and gradually lost himself in the gentle monotony of sewing.

* * *

In the final days leading up to the ball, Harry kept his head down and did his level best to stay out of sight and to fade into the background. He had, somewhat shockingly, a reasonable degree of success.

All three of the Dursley's had much better uses for their time than bothering to make his life miserable with the Ball so close. They all had different reasons to be invested in the Ball.

For Vernon, this would be the best opportunity to network that he'd gotten in recent years.

For Petunia, it was a chance to marry her son off to one of the few women Petunia considered good enough for Dudley and a chance to expand her gossip network. That second part was the larger contributor to her– and Dudley's– busyness in the lead up to the Ball. She kept the two of them incredibly busy acquiring the largest amount of gossip possible, because few things revealed more skeletons in the closet than a massive public event. And the Ball itself would be the perfect place to exchange the gossip collected in the lead-up to the event.

And Dudley was, of course, invested because he thought he had a shot at marrying the Princess.

With the Dursley's off his back, Harry had been able to make considerable progress on sewing his dress robes. It was a bigger project than he'd ever undertaken, and he couldn't help but be pleased with the results.

It was the early hours of the day of the ball, long before the Dursley's would be awake, and Harry was putting the final touches on the robes.

Shaking them out in the cramped space of his cupboard, Harry gave them a last look over by the light of his candle. When he was unable to find anything he'd missed, he slid out of his cupboard almost supernaturally silently.

He creeped through the house to the bathroom by the kitchen, the one furthest from his relatives' rooms, and eased inside, carefully closing the door behind him.

It was time for Harry to try on the robes he'd so carefully and painstakingly put together from scratch, and he was terrified that he'd messed up somewhere.

If there were mistakes, he'd either have to live with them and go to the ball in the inferior robes anyways, or not go to the ball at all. And he'd been so looking forward to seeing the castle ever since he decided to go, that not being able to go would be heartbreaking.

Harry took one last fortifying deep breath before he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the robes on. Patting himself down, he couldn't find anything immediately or egregiously wrong with them.

With this reassuring first inspection in mind, Harry opened his eyes and looked himself over in the mirror over the sink. Since the bathroom was not meant for guests, it was a perfectly ordinary, relatively small, and quite plain mirror. Despite this, it did an admirable job of showing Harry his reflection, and what a reflection it was.

Focusing on the reflection of the robes, Harry felt quite honestly proud of himself.

The robes, though they were quite simple, were no less elegant for that. The dark green and black scraps that the tailor had given him worked together incredibly well and brought out the green of his eyes that his friends were forever telling him was handsome.

There were several places where, when Harry brought the material up to his eye, he could see a misshapen stitch or a frayed thread, and though this was disappointing, they did nothing to ruin the overall effect of the robes. And he decided that they were definitely adequate for attending the royal ball.

And with that thought, Harry was overcome with the realization that he really was going to be going to the ball. Up till this moment, it hadn't truly sunk in yet.

But standing there in the robes he'd spent hours lovingly and painstakingly sewing, he finally believed that it was going to happen.

Throwing one last giddy smile at his reflection, Harry carefully took off the robes and silently made his way back through the house to his cupboard.

He folded the robes carefully to avoid creases and hid them under his mattress.

Lying down, Harry's mind drifted over his plans for the day. Because of his duties in helping prepare the Dursley's for the ball, he would definitely be late for the ball.

Thankfully the Dursley's were the sort of people who believed people who arrived late to events were inexcusably rude, and consequently arrived almost obnoxiously early whenever they had an appointment for something.

So, after seeing the Dursley's on their way to the ball, Harry would rush back to his cupboard and get ready as quickly as he possibly could.

Once he was ready, he would dart out to the shed in the back of the garden and retrieve the flying broomstick he knew was there. Once, many, _many_ years ago, Dudley had received the broomstick for his birthday and attempted to ride it.

Unfortunately for him, he either didn't have the minuscule amount of inherent magical power necessary for the broom to work. or the amount he did have was simply insufficient for the size of his bulk. Either way, the broom had sat in the shed nearly entirely forgotten ever since.

Harry hoped desperately that he had the requisite amount of magic to power the broomstick, but he had a plan for if he did not.

He knew that it wasn't a very good plan, but it was a plan. If he didn't have enough magic for the broomstick, he'd jog the two miles to the main thoroughfare, and try to hitchhike the rest of the way to the castle. He wasn't entirely sure that he'd risk it, if push came to shove, but hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

His plans for the big day firmly established, Harry turned over and settled in to try and snag a couple hours of sleep, before what could quite possibly be the most exciting day of his life began.

* * *

Harry was in the kitchen quickly heating up the meal he'd prepared the day before because he'd known full well that he wouldn't have time to cook properly today. He plated it all, making sure to snag a few bites for himself, and set the table for the Dursley's.

As he was making his way back towards the kitchen, Dudley burst into the dining room. Harry turned to the door Dudley had come through and froze at the sight of what Dudley had in his meaty hands.

For there were the robes that he'd made so carefully.

"What were you going to do with these you little freak?" Dudley asked viciously.

Harry didn't even try to stammer out an answer; anything he said would either get him in trouble or be a blatant lie, but after a split second of silence, he realized Dudley should never have found those.

"Dudley," Harry began quietly, "Where did you find those?"

"Mum needed a rag for something, and I thought I'd just grab one of the ones you wear, when I happened to see this," here Dudley brandished the material in his hands, "sticking out from under the mattress. And I just knew it was gonna be good if you were trying to hide it."

Harry closed his eyes in defeat. He couldn't believe he'd been so careless. It must've been his excitement and exhaustion. And now it was all for naught. There was absolutely no way Dudley was going to let Harry have them back.

"It looks to me like you stole from us, there's no way an orphan like you could afford robes this nice," Dudley continued, "so I think I'll just show these to Dad."

"I swear I didn't steal anything," Harry said, looking up. "Please don't- "

Dudley suddenly gripped the robes and pulled, irreparably tearing them in two. He smiled viciously, and said, "Now that that's out of the way, my parents really don't have time to deal with a sneaking thief like you right now. But in return for waiting to tell them you'll owe me– and owe me big."

Knowing full well that this was the best outcome he could have hoped for, and that there was a decent chance that Dudley would forget this even happened, Harry nodded his understanding.

Dudley tossed the scraps of material to the ground and took his seat at the table.

Harry ran over and picked them up and darted to the stairs, depositing the material in his cupboard on his way to call Petunia and Vernon to the meal.

He could feel the tears building in his eyes and he struggled to contain them. There was no sympathy to be found here, and he knew that if any of the Dursley's saw his devastation, they would demand to know what had caused it.

And then he would really be in trouble, for there was no other reason for him to have dress robes on this, the day of the Ball.

He knew he just had to make it to when the Dursley's left for the ball and then he could vent his sorrows in peace.

* * *

AN: please review!


	3. Chapter 3

After the cruel destruction of his robes, Harry went about the rest of the day preparing the Dursley's for the ball in a haze.

He didn't quite know how he managed to make it through the day without messing something up or otherwise drawing the wrath of the Dursley's, because even though they were entirely self-absorbed and focused on themselves and the Ball, Harry was barely there and therefore prone to mistakes.

The whole day, Harry kept waiting for Dudley to renege on their 'deal' and tell his parents about the robes he'd found, but by some incredible stroke of luck, Dudley kept it to himself.

It wasn't until Harry heard the sound of the Dursleys' carriage pulling away that he truly came back into himself. He realized that he was standing stationary in the foyer and that he was still holding the shoeshine he'd used one last time before the Dursley's had left. Harry wandered back into the house to put it away.

Walking back through the house, Harry caught sight of his cupboard out of the corner of his eye. He came to a halt outside the cupboard and stared despondently at the door. He knew that the destruction that Dudley had wrought was unfixable and complete, but he couldn't help the urge to see the robes and to make absolutely certain that he couldn't do something for them.

So, he steeled himself and pulled the door open. The pile of green and black material lying innocently on his cot looked completely innocuous. He reached into his cupboard with a trembling hand and pulled the tattered pieces of his beautiful robes out.

Holding them up, he could see that they were still somewhat intact. Enough so that Harry pulled them on. He forced himself to not think of the state of his robes until he got to the same bathroom he'd been in when he inspected his robes after finishing them.

After a long moment of pointedly not looking in the mirror, Harry finally took the plunge and looked. And, seeing what had become of the beautiful robes that he had tried so hard to make, caused all the feelings of disappointment and misery that he'd kept bottled up while in front of the Dursley's to wash over him anew.

With a desperate sob, Harry burst out of the bathroom, through the house, and into the garden. He crashed to a halt beside the pond. Laying there on the grass, he took full advantage of his solitude and let himself cry out his misery in a way that he hadn't since he was a very small child.

The garden was otherwise silent but for the sound of his heart-wrenching sobs, and as he lay there, the sun eased into the golden hour, bathing the rather plain garden in golden light and reflecting gently off the surface of the pond.

As his sobbing eased into the occasional hiccup and residual tear, he slowly sat up and suddenly became aware of another presence in the garden. The shock of realizing that he was not, in fact, alone, caused him to lurch to his feet and cease crying entirely. But before he could try and find some words to say, the stranger began to speak.

"Easy there, Prongslet, what's got you so upset?" The man asked gently. Harry noticed that his dark grey eyes were kind and full of concern before he remembered that he wasn't supposed to look people above his status in the eye and looked away. And it was abundantly clear that the man was above Harry's status, between his resplendent robes and perfectly styled hair.

"I'm fine, I'm not upset," Harry said, quickly wiping away a few stray tears. "But who are you, and how did you get in here? I'm certain I locked the door."

The man watched Harry wipe away the tears with a sardonic raised eyebrow, and said, somewhat dubiously, "You definitely _look_ fine." Then he continued more matter of factly, "And my name is Sirius. Otherwise known as your Fairy Dogfather." At this, he took a flourishing bow.

It was Harry's turn to look dubious.

"I see by that look in your eye that you don't quite believe me," Sirius said, "So allow me to prove it!" Sirius narrowed his eyes and closely scrutinized Harry from head to toe. Then Sirius nodded to himself and pulled out his wand. "Right. So you obviously can't go to the Ball looking like that."

Harry blushed in shame and looked away.

"Hey now, none of that, I am here to fix it after all," Sirius admonished, "Now, let's get you cleaned up." At that, Sirius dramatically waved his wand in Harry's direction, causing a thin stream of sparks to dart through the air and circle around him.

Harry startled slightly, then looked down at himself. He was astonished to find that he was now sparkling clean. While he objectively knew that magic was real, and had even experienced it before, in the form of the few enchanted objects the Dursley's kept around the house, it was another thing entirely to have magic cast on him.

"Everyone looks better with a bit of polish on them," Sirius said, with a firm nod. "Up next, you most definitely need some robes. Luckily for you, I am absolute star at conjuring and have a stellar eye for fashion so just hold still for a moment while I switch out those poor torn pieces you're wearing," Sirius said, with another dramatic flourish of his wand.

Almost instantly the remains of the robes Harry had painstakingly sewn himself were replaced by a splendid set of robes.

They were made of a shimmering silvery material, embroidered with dark green thread the exact shade of his eyes, and lined with the softest material he'd ever felt. Rubbing his hand over them, Harry said, "Sirius, I can't thank yo- "

"Now, now," Sirius interrupted, "I'm not nearly done yet, I've still got to sort out your shoes," he jabbed his wand at Harry's feet causing a pair of comfortable, shining black boots to appear on his feet.

"Fix your hair and give you a proper hat," he gently gestured with his wand towards Harry's hair, and Harry felt his hair part itself and a hat land on top of it.

"And finally, we need to sort how you need to get to the ball. Now I know it's cliché, but I really do love transfiguring pumpkins." Sirius trailed off, glancing around as if hoping to see a pumpkin lying around the bland garden.

"Ah, Sirius, I can just fly the broom. It's really no trouble, and," Harry smiled, "I was kinda looking forward to flying, it looks really fun and I've never gotten to do it before."

"You've never flown before?" Sirius looked outraged at this. "You simply _must_ then. I can at least charm the broom to make things easier though. Charms to make it so you won't be seen while flying it, so other people besides you won't be able to grab it from wherever you leave it, and so you'll be able to find it easily at the end of the night. Basic stuff really, so where is it?"

Harry walked over to the shed, pulled the broom out, and handed it to Sirius.

Sirius was muttering some charms and waving his wand over the broom. Harry hoped he wasn't going to make Sirius mad by interrupting, but he was curious enough to hesitantly ask, "Why did you call me Prongslet earlier? What does it mean?"

Sirius finished what he was doing and handed the now gently shimmering broom to Harry. Then Sirius said, "It's to do with your father, James, and some shenanigans we got up to in school."

At this, Harry felt the sharp sting of betrayal. "You knew my father? And– and you just now decided to show up? Where have you been–" Harry cut himself off, unable to finish the sentence, let alone the train of thought.

A remorseful look came over Sirius's face, "Harry… I'm not _really_ alive. I know I do an absolutely astounding imitation of an alive person, but I really don't _belong_ here. I was only allowed to come here now because of the degree of despondency you felt tonight. This is not how it was supposed to be, and Fate decided to send Yours Truly to set the timeline right.

"James and Lily would have loved nothing more than to come and to see you, but, well, Fate chose me to do the job, and so here I am."

Harry immediately felt guilty that he'd obviously upset Sirius– and after he'd done so much to help Harry too. Before his thoughts could spiral further, however, Sirius interrupted him.

"Alright pup, now that you're all kitted out for the evening, it's time for you to head to the Ball. Unfortunately, since I'm dead and all, the magic I've performed tonight will fade away at midnight, so make sure you're back here by then or you'll find yourself naked wherever you are at the time," he said with a wink.

Then he stepped forward and asked, "Will you give me a hug before I have to go?"

Harry nodded, glad that he was nearly entirely healed from the last time Vernon had been physical with him, and gently wrapped his arms around Sirius as Sirius did the same to him.

"I've got to go now," Sirius said, breaking the hug and taking a step away from Harry. Then he began to fade away, gradually becoming more transparent.

Harry blinked, and when he opened his eyes, it was as if Sirius had never been there at all. The only evidence he left behind was the robes on Harry's body and the shimmering broom in his hand.

Shaking his head, Harry snapped himself out of it. He had a Ball to get to and a castle to see, after all!

Harry slung one leg over the broom in his hand and took off. The initial rush of riding the broomstick was unlike anything Harry had ever experienced in his life.

Before he could lose himself in the joy of flying, he needed to make some decisions on how to go about getting to the castle. After a moment's thought, he decided to generally follow the road. There was no risk in being seen, after all, since most people were heading the same way he was and would think nothing of another traveler. And from the height he was at, the chances that he'd be recognized were slim to none.

Decision made, Harry disengaged his mind and immersed himself in zipping along. He quickly discovered that flying felt _natural_. That it felt _right_.

And the longer he flew, the more he could feel himself shedding the worry, the anxiety, the fear that had been haunting him nearly his entire life. Ever since his parents had lost their lives in that horrible carriage crash.

He sped through the air luxuriating in the novel weightlessness. Nothing else in his life had ever felt so good, and he relished the opportunity to truly indulge in something he enjoyed.

As the joy built up in his chest until he thought he might burst with it, Harry let out a whoop and nudged the broom upwards, rapidly gaining altitude. After climbing as high as he dared, he arched the broom downwards, back towards the ground. Then he dropped into a freefall, allowing the weightlessness to suffuse his entire body. He pulled out of the dive long before he reached the ground and used his momentum to spiral back towards the sky.

Looping this way and that, rapidly ascending followed quickly by steep dives, Harry gradually made his way towards his destination.

He knew that his time was limited, and he really ought to just fly straight there, but he was having so much fun flying that he couldn't bring himself to rush there, thus shortening his opportunity to fly like a real wizard.

Looking down, Harry saw a lake, and a grin slowly spread across his face. He had smiled so much in the small amount of time since Sirius had come to him that his cheek muscles were beginning to ache from the unusual strain.

He dropped like a stone towards the water surface, leveling out just before he would have taken a plunge into the water. Gripping the broom with his legs, Harry leaned forwards and trailed his fingers through the clear water and admired the reflection of the sunset that he now had a stunning view of.

All too soon, he reached the end of the lake and had to climb into the air again to avoid a sudden copse of trees.

After leveling out from his ascent, Harry was shocked to see that he had reached the castle.

And that it was everything he'd imagined it to be.

There were elegant towers that seemed to reach to the stars, and windows that glowed gently in the summertime dusk, and gently arching bridges that almost seemed to float. The grounds were no less stunning than the castle, with their rolling green slopes and clusters of perfect green trees, and hordes of lightning bugs spread out over the entire scene.

Harry hung there in the sky for a long moment, just soaking in the sight, before he shook himself out of it and angled his broom down to land.

Although seeing the castle had been most of his goal in coming, he still wanted to go see Hermione and Daphne– they could have a couple hours together, without the usual worries such time together would entail. Especially if they were willing to find a private room somewhere to chat in. Harry knew that if he ended up spending any time in the ballroom at all, he'd end up getting more and more nervous about one of the Dursley's spotting him, so he hoped that Daphne and Hermione would be okay with leaving the ballroom for at least a little while.

He landed clumsily, a hundred meters or so from the castle gate, in the middle of one those clumps of trees. Harry hid the broom under a particularly dense bush, making sure to hide it well, just to prevent anyone from stumbling upon it. As he walked away, he glanced back, and was slightly startled to realize that his gaze was drawn automatically to where he'd hidden the broom.

After a few moments of experimentation, he realized that as long as he was thinking about the broom, his gaze was drawn directly to where he'd hid it, even when facing forward. Sirius's charm-work was excellent!

Now reassured that he'd be able to find his broom when he needed to, Harry hurried on towards the castle.

Harry had gotten pass the gate, and its guards, and into the castle, easily enough. He was the right age and dressed appropriately, so he fit right in with the rest of the invited guests. And since just about everyone even remotely capable of attending was here tonight, there were plenty of guests for Harry to blend in with.

It was only once he'd gotten inside the castle main that the real problem presented itself. He had been swept into the crowd of attendees and he recognized absolutely none of them. He was surrounded by people, with no way to find Hermione or Daphne.

They didn't even know for certain that Harry would be here, since they knew quite well that there was every chance that he'd be caught out– just like he had been– so he couldn't even count on them to be looking around for him.

And after a couple minutes of standing in the crowd, trying his best to look for a hint of his best friends' presence, he began to panic and feel the overwhelming urge get out of there.

Living with the Dursley's had made him sensitive to even the most benign of unexpected physical contact, and the crowd he was in the middle of kept jostling him around slightly, adding to the panic he felt building in his chest.

Harry began to blindly force his way through the crowd, not sure where he was going or how he was going to get there, just needing to move, to get out of the increasingly claustrophobic crowd.

It was as though he was trying to swim up a particularly turbulent river. Every time he fought free of one group of people; he was immediately surrounded by another.

Deciding that this tactic wasn't working, he turned blindly to the right and pushed as hard as he could, contorting himself every which way so he could slip through the tiny, fleeting gaps people left between them.

This method paid off when he bumped into the wall. He turned back to the way he was going earlier, and continued forcing his way through the crowd, this time with one hand in comforting, near-constant, contact with the wall.

After what felt like a century, his hand brushed a discrete door that looked more like it was meant for servants than anything else. And since he hadn't seen any sign of his friends during his push through the crowd, he decided to take a few seconds to recover before trying to search again.

He quickly cracked the door open just wide enough for him to slip through into the darkness beyond, and immediately shut it behind him. Then he pushed his back against the now closed door and slid down into a seated position, closing his eyes as he went.

Then a voice came forth from the darkness in front of him, "Not much for parties, I take it?"

Harry's eyes slammed open, and he clambered to his feet as quickly as he could, at the sound of a voice in front of him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know someone was here, I'll just," he started grasping behind him for the doorknob, "leave you…alone…" He trailed off when he realized that he could now see the young woman standing in front of him. Harry absently noted that she must have turned the lights on at some point as he realized that she was the most beautiful person he had ever laid eyes on.

The robes she was wearing were resplendent and perfectly fitted for her body. They were a magnificent royal purple that contrasted nicely with her hair. Hair that was such a bright and ferocious red, that it seemed to almost be glowing of its own accord.

Focusing on her face, Harry felt himself drawn into the warmth of her bright brown eyes. He realized that he was looking directly into her eyes. He couldn't believe that he'd already messed up this same rule once today and immediately ripped his eyes away from her.

And immediately noticed that there was a tiara on her head.

Harry firmly placed them his gaze on the ground where it was safe and sunk into a low bow, holding the position. He could not believe that he had been so distracted by taking in her beauty that he'd failed to notice something so significant.

At that moment Harry was quite sure he was done for.

He had blundered through the door and completely ignored her presence once he was through to the room in favor of sitting gracelessly on the floor. Then he tried to address her familiarly. And then to top it all off, he'd looked her in the eyes. If he'd had the gall to do that to the Dursley's, he'd already be out back for a personal session with Vernon and his whip.

Harry forcibly wrenched his mind away from that train of thought, he had to try and make amends. His back was already starting to ache from holding the bow, but he grit his teeth and bore it. He hoped she would say something soon so he could beg to be dismissed.

Finally, she said, sounding oddly shocked, "What are you _doing_? Please don't bow to me."

Harry hastily straightened out of the bow and was distracted by the blood rushing rapidly back into his head.

After the spots faded from his vision and brought his mind back to the present, he realized the Princess had been speaking, and that he hadn't been listening. Great. Another offense to add to the list. He forced himself to listen and not wallow.

"…so boring I cannot believe Mum thought this was a good– are you even listening to me?" The Princess demanded, rapidly switching tone from vague exasperation to a sharper annoyance.

"I'm so sor-sorry, Princess," Harry stammered out, "I didn't mean any disrespect." He paused to take a fortifying breath.

"Really?" the Princess cut in, somewhat suspiciously, "You mean to say that you, a man, respect me."

Harry was initially flabbergasted at the idea that he would not respect her, the princess. But then he picked up on the context of what she said and came to the uncomfortable conclusion that there must be a number of men in her life that did not respect her. Oh, he knew that many, if not most, men did not respect women, but he'd failed to realize that this extended all the way up to the princess.

"I'm hardly a man, princess, but I definitely do respect you. If you would give me another chance to listen, I promise I would give you my undivided attention," Harry said, though he was positive that she would finally come to her senses and call the guards to have him reprimanded.

That's not what happened, however.

Instead, she gave him a serious look as if she were judging whether he was worth another shot, before ultimately nodding.

Then she said, "Well, as I was saying before, I find this whole event ridiculous. All I'm doing is standing around while boring men crowd out anyone else who would want to get to know me just so they can fawn over me! They don't even _try_ to get to know me. It's like they've already decided that they know everything about me and that talking to me is a waste of time or something. I told my mum that this would never work, but did she listen? No, of course not. She was just too excited to have a daughter to throw a ball for…"

She trailed off, giving Harry another stare. He honestly couldn't believe his luck that she hadn't called the guards. So, while she had been talking, he'd nodded occasionally and agreed verbally in all the appropriate places, but really, there wasn't much he could say.

As a servant, a slave really, and a man to boot, he couldn't relate to what she was saying at all.

When it seemed like she was definitely expecting a proper response, Harry said slowly, "I'm sorry you're having such a bad time at an event that's supposed to be for you." He had almost no idea what, precisely, he was supposed to say here. He was entirely out of his depth.

The princess sighed. "There's the problem, isn't it? It's supposed to be for me, but I haven't had any part in the planning. I didn't even want to wear this stupid dress."

She sighed again and said, "Tell me about yourself, I need to be distracted before I do something stupid like rip this dress off and burn it."

Harry froze. Talk about himself? There was nothing to say, really. He could hardly tell her about the Dursleys, and since he really didn't have free time, he didn't have any hobbies to talk about. Except…

"Well I'm not a very interesting person," Harry began. "But I do have the best, best friends in the world. Their names are Hermione and Daphne. Hermione's parents run the local bookstore in my town and she's the biggest bookworm ever. She's practically an encyclopedia all on her own. Daphne is just as smart as Hermione, but in a different way. She's really clever and a bit better with people than Hermione is, you might know her parents, actually, I think they hold some kind of nobility… her last name is Greengrass?"

The princess's eyes lit up at the mention of the name, "Oh you're talking about that Daphne! I was just telling Ron that I was hoping she would be here tonight; we rarely see her anymore and I heard she was looking to get betrothed."

"I don't know about getting betrothed, but I do know that she and Hermione are dating now," Harry said, glad that he was able to contribute to the conversation.

The princess looked wistful for a moment, "That's really good for them, I'm glad they found each other. Did you mention Hermione's last name?"

"It's Granger, I doubt you would have heard of her, she's just a commoner," Harry said.

"Oh, rank doesn't mean much anymore here at the castle, but you're right I don't recognize the name. Still, it explains why we haven't seen much of Daphne lately."

"Well if you want to see her, I'm sure she's around here somewhere, probably on the dance floor with Hermione," Harry said.

"I see how it is! you're trying to get rid of me," the princess said with a glare.

Harry blanched.

In a rambling rush, he said, "No, I swear that's not it at all your highness, I just, assumed that you'd much rather spend time with someone like her than you would with me, and it's, y'know, polite to give someone an out of a conversation, if you think they'd rather be someone else, I definitely wasn't trying–"

"I was joking! It's okay, I was just joking," the princess interrupted. "And please don't call me, 'your highness', or anything like that, just call me Ginny."

Harry tried to calm his still rushing heart.

Ginny continued, "But you do have a good idea, what if we went looking for them together? Daphne is a mutual friend after all, and Hermione is probably with her too."

Harry couldn't quite understand why Ginny –which, he still couldn't believe that the princess had asked him to call her by her nickname– would choose to be accompanied by him, when she could have just gone on her own. But Harry found that talking to her was easy and that he had enjoyed spending time with her, so he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ginny beckoned him to follow her out a different door than the one Harry had come through, so he did, and as they were walking out the door, she offered him her arm. He wasn't quite sure what to do for a moment, then he realized with a bit of a jolt that he was supposed to take it.

And together, they walked towards the beckoning sound of the ballroom.

* * *

Harry began to regret his decision to accompany the prin– _Ginny_, he corrected himself, to the ballroom almost immediately after they stepped into the cavernous room.

As Harry stepped through the threshold of the large double doors, still being escorted by Ginny, a wave of sound and heat hit him right in the face, and if Ginny had not had a grip on his arm, Harry knew he would have most likely turned and made a prompt and undignified exit.

She was escorting him, however, so he'd had to grin and bear it.

The noise had seemed to crescendo as the attendees realized that the princess was among them. Ginny didn't seem to notice the attention, however, and she continued her path through the crowd, seeming to know exactly where she was going.

How she had any idea where she was going, Harry had no idea. He had been completely lost from the moment he set foot in the castle.

After several more agonizing moments of following Ginny as she confidently pushing through the crowd, she came to a rapid halt that almost ended with Harry crashing directly into her. Thankfully, he managed to spin his momentum to the side, around where she was now standing.

Oddly, she didn't take the opportunity to drop his arm. He couldn't imagine why someone would choose to remain in contact with him when they didn't have to and had just had the perfect excuse to terminate the contact.

He waved and smiled at Hermione and Daphne. Daphne quickly waved back as Hermione said, "I know Daphne didn't set up a meeting and you were clearly making a direct path directly toward us, so how did you know where to find us, Princess?"

"First of all, please call me Ginny. And, well, I figured Daphne would be as far away from Ron as it is humanly possible to be, and Ron would be as close to the food as it's possible to be. This area is both far from the food, and near a door, giving you the opportunity to escape if necessary. Really, it was easy to reason out," Ginny said smugly.

Daphne gave a sardonic round of applause, and said, "Excellently reasoned, even more so when you consider that it was done without knowing that Hermione here would want to be positioned as close to the library as possible."

Harry grinned at the reminder that Hermione was probably itching to explore the castle's library– it was well known for being one of the largest collections of books around. And Hermione was certainly one of the biggest bookworms around.

"Speaking of you not knowing that Hermione loves books," Daphne continued, "Meet Hermione Granger, my lovely girlfriend and date for the evening. I'd introduce you to Ginny, but well, you clearly already recognize her."

Ginny playfully slapped Daphne on the arm and held out her hand for Hermione to shake. "It is nice to meet the woman who apparently stole Daphne from the palace. I can certainly see why she'd much rather spend time out in the country with you, than here," Ginny said with a wink.

"Well," Daphne replied, "It's not like I was living here anyways, so you're not really missing out on _that_ much of my company."

There was a moment where the four stood in somewhat comfortable, somewhat awkward silence before Hermione said, "So how did you and Harry meet, Ginny? Knowing Harry, he definitely didn't go seeking you out."

Harry would have been annoyed by the way she addressed the question entirely to Ginny, but he knew as well as Hermione did that the answer would be much more complete coming from Ginny, than it would be coming from him.

Ginny glanced at him before saying, "Well, I was hiding in a semi-abandoned storage room when Harry here barged in on my privacy. He freaked out a bit when he realized that I'm the princess and I got mad when he didn't listen to me at first, but then he did a good job listening after I yelled at him. We decided to come to the ballroom to find you guys, and here we are!"

A part of Harry was fascinated that she wasn't more hung up on how disrespectful he'd been, but he was beginning to see that those things just weren't important to her.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what happened," Harry agreed, when it seemed they were waiting for some input from him, after all.

The conversation then devolved into Hermione, Daphne, and Ginny poking fun at each other for everything from storytelling ability to bookworm tendencies. Harry had a lot of fun just standing there listening to them have at it.

Ginny didn't seem to care at all when Daphne and Hermione overtly insulted her and even seemed to find it funny. Harry still had a hard time wrapping his mind around someone with true status, in fact one of the highest ranked people in the country, being okay and even enjoying joking around with minor nobility and commoners. But little by little it was sinking in that that was exactly who Ginny was.

Then a new song started, and Hermione and Daphne shared a significant look. Daphne grabbed Hermione's hand and Hermione said, "This is our song! We have to go dance to it!"

They disappeared into the throng of dancing people, Hermione impatiently tugging on Daphne's hand.

And so, once again, Harry was alone with Ginny. He was still half-expecting her to tell him to bugger off, but until she did, he fully intended to stick around and enjoy her company.

"So, do you dance?" Ginny asked, after it was clear Harry was not going to start the conversation himself.

"Um, I've never tried before," Harry admitted, beginning to get nervous that he was heading towards embarrassment on the dance floor.

"Well there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" Ginny said enthusiastically. "Come dance with me." Her tone left no room for argument, and she released Harry's arm so she could hold out her hand impatiently.

Harry made sure to keep his grimace internal as he gently clasped her hand. He had been right to be nervous.

She led him onto the dance floor, where she shifted her grip so that his hand was held more tightly in hers and pulled him towards her. Then she grabbed his other hand, and placed it on her waist, before putting her own hand on his waist.

"Just follow my lead," Ginny said, as if he'd have any idea of what else to do.

And follow her lead he did, as they glided around the dance floor. He had never danced before, but following in Ginny's step was easier than breathing. A step here, a turn there, a jump back, and suddenly Harry was struck with the realization that he was dancing.

Harry had no idea how he knew when to do what; it was as if Ginny and he were connected, one unit moving tandem, gliding their way around the dance floor as if they were the only two people in the world.

When Ginny released one of Harry's hands and spun him out along her arm, Harry's face split into a grin just a wide as the one he'd worn while flying.

Then Ginny picked him up off the ground and spun him around through the air before setting him down gently. All without ever breaking step. And Harry decided that dancing was simply another type of flying. And as he focused on the feel of Ginny's body against his, he began to wonder if dancing could be the superior kind of flying.

Just when Harry was sure his lungs were going to burst, the song shifted, and the tempo slowed. Ginny reeled him in closer, so their bodies were a hairsbreadth apart. They slowly made their way around the dance floor, catching their breath in the aftermath of their flight.

Standing so close to Ginny made Harry finally notice their height difference– or rather, lack thereof– even more evident.

Harry was only a scant couple centimeters taller than her, making him the perfect height for her to lean in and rest her forehead against his. They stayed like that, slowing rocking on the dance floor, foreheads pressed together, for a moment that could have been a century or just a fleeting second.

Harry was startled to realize that there were tears running down his cheeks. He leaned back, breaking the contact between them, and hastily swiped the tears away, wondering where they had come from. It was not so easy to swipe away the smile he had growing on his face.

"Is everything okay?" Ginny asked, the concern heavy in her voice.

"Yeah," Harry said, "I'm just– really, _really_ happy."

Ginny smiled back at him and leaned forward once again to rest her forehead against his.

"Well, you _are_ dancing with me," Ginny said softly, the barest hint of humor in her voice.

"Who could hope to escape without a few happy tears in such a situation," Harry replied, unknowingly copying her tone of voice.

The rest of the world faded away as Ginny ever so slowly brought her hand up to rest against the back of Harry's neck. She pulled her head away just enough so she could tilt it to the side, but as she did, Harry saw the one thing he had been most afraid of.

Through the crowd behind Ginny, Harry saw Petunia Dursley.

* * *

AN: please review!


	4. Chapter 4

Harry stumbled backwards and froze as his brain struggled to process the presence of someone who made him so deeply unhappy while he was the happiest that he had ever been.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Ginny asked, startling him out of his fear-born stupor.

"I have to go _now_," Harry said urgently, slipping his hands from her grip and turning to run out of the ballroom as fast he could.

As he fled the crowd, he could sense, more than he could feel, the steady presence of Ginny behind him, keeping up as he ran as quickly as he could through the crowd of dancers.

He burst through the side door someone had pointed out earlier and kept going, looking for a small and plain door similar to the one he had found Ginny behind, sure that Petunia would never dare to search for him behind one of them. Grand, conspicuous door after grand, conspicuous door passed him in a blur. His muscles began to burn again, and his lungs protested such strenuous motion so soon after the vigorous motion they had been put through while dancing.

Before he could work himself into a panic, he came upon a plain door tucked away into a corner and wrenched it open, falling unceremoniously into the darkened interior. Ginny followed at a just barely more sedate pace and waved her hand as she entered the room. The door closed itself and the lamps lit themselves at this motion, revealing a slightly dusty storeroom.

Harry remained on the ground for a moment, allowing the musty carpet to fill his vision, content to just be away from the ballroom, and more importantly, away from the Dursley's.

He heard Ginny bustling around doing something, and a small voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Petunia, was shouting that it was his job to do whatever Ginny felt needed to be done so she didn't have to do it. But he couldn't muster up the energy to get himself off the ground. It was like gravity was suddenly stronger than it had ever been before, and it was far easier to simply lay on the ground and succumb to its effects.

After only a few moments longer, however, Harry sensed Ginny walk over towards him. He distantly wondered what she was doing until she answered his question by sliding her hands under him and rolling him over.

Harry barely had a chance to note this change in position and be glad that his back had long since healed, before had she grabbed his hands and began pulling him into a seated position, and then to his feet. She kept her grip on his hands and steered him a couple feet further into the room and pushed him gently into a chair that looked like it had been cleared off just recently.

Then she sat herself in a chair facing his that had been similarly cleared off.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened back there, or am I just going to have to guess?" Ginny asked lightly.

Harry stared at her blankly, still unable to coordinate his mind and muscles sufficiently to respond to her. A small part of his brain screamed at him that he was being disrespectful to the princess and that he needed to answer her now, but no matter how loud that part of his brain screamed, his muscles refused to cooperate.

When it became clear that Harry was not going to respond, Ginny sighed.

"I guess I'll have to guess what happened then," Ginny said, "Let's see, when I moved my head to kiss you– and you can rest assured that I still plan to collect on that kiss– anyways, when I moved my head, you saw something absolutely startling. Since we were in the ballroom, that something was probably a person. I bet it was a long-lost twin, so you, quite understandably, freaked out when you saw someone who looked _just like you_ standing mere feet away! I'll bet you thought it was an illusion at first, and that's why you stumbled backwards! Or maybe it _was_ an illusion and my brothers Fred and George decided to come to the event after all…"

She continued to ramble on, suggesting possibilities that ranged from the absolutely ridiculous to the just barely feasible. She dropped the names of people he'd never heard of and places he'd never been to and he lost himself in the soothing drone of her voice.

Eventually his heart-beat steadied, and his thoughts smoothed out. When he felt ready to tell her about what had happened– he owed her that much, at the very least– he listened for her to take a breath, so he could jump in.

"Uh, Ginny," Harry started, hesitantly. "I'm, uh, ready to tell you what happened, if, if you're still interested in hearing about it."

"I am definitely still interested, just, you should know that you don't have to tell me about it, if you don't want to. It seemed to upset you a lot, and talking about it might help, but you don't have to tell me just to satisfy my curiosity."

Harry thought this over, before he decided that he did want to tell her about it. She was one of the easiest people to talk to that he had ever met. Granted he hadn't met all that many people, but still.

"I saw my aunt behind you," Harry began slowly. "I live with my aunt and uncle and cousin and have since my parents died in a carriage accident when I was very little. They," he gulped, taking a moment to collect himself, before continuing.

"They don't like me very much, and I've always been a bit of a burden to them. They had only ever wanted their one perfect son, but then one day I was dumped on their doorstep, and they really had no choice but to take me in. And I've tried my best to be grateful, I really have! I just sometimes. It's hard," Harry finished lamely.

He fiddled with the sleeves of his fancy dress robes while he waited for her response, careful to avoid eye contact.

"I get the feeling there's more to it than them not liking you very much, if you felt the need to run away from them…?" Ginny asked tentatively.

Harry ran a shaky hand through his still mostly untamed hair, not noticing that he had knocked his hat off in the process, "Is it that obvious? Just, give me a moment."

Did he want to confess how bad things were with Dursley's to Ginny? He'd never ever actually talked about it with anyone, since Hermione and Daphne only knew what they observed. Their time together tended to be too short for it to be worth it for them to push Harry into talking about things he definitely did not want to talk about.

Then there was the added complication that telling Ginny was telling someone who potentially had the power to change things. And he couldn't decide if it would be worse if he told her and she did get involved, or if he told her and nothing ever changed.

After another moment, he remembered that she didn't even know his last name. As long as he avoided names when telling her about them, there was no easy way for her to track him down. Honestly, he didn't know why he was bothering to worry about her doing anything at all, since he clearly wasn't important enough to justify any action, let alone a coordinated search.

He could use this one chance at anonymity to really talk to someone. Having decided this, he took a deep fortifying breath and began to tell her about his life. He couldn't quite stop himself from glossing over the worst bits, but he did tell her about some of the things, just enough to give her an idea of what they were like. Because he also didn't want her to think that Harry was whiny, or above his station

So, he told her about things like the names they called him. And then, because he felt lighter after getting that off his chest, he told her about how he never got time to himself, ever. Then he found himself telling her about how frequently they restricted his food. It wasn't until he heard himself telling her where the Dursley's made him sleep that he managed to stop himself.

Because the more he confided in her, the lighter he felt. It was as though holding these things so close to his chest, so secretly, had been weighing his soul down. And now that he was sharing the years of hurt with someone, they had less power to weigh him down.

As he trailed off after he had exhausted the list of things that he was willing to tell her about, he was finally able to glance at her face for the first time since he had seen Petunia. He was struck by how warm and sad her expression was, but he couldn't find any pity at all on her face.

He felt a rush of affection for her so strong that he completely lost the remainder of his train of thought.

"I'm so proud of you for telling me all that, Harry," Ginny said, reaching out a hand to rest on Harry's knee. "I'm sure it was hard for you. I just want to make sure you know that you did not deserve that treatment at all. Nobody does, but certainly not a child. And I am so glad that you burst into that room I was hiding in, because meeting you has absolutely made this ridiculous Ball worth it."

Ginny paused for a moment. "I hate these types of things, usually, because everyone is always falling over themselves to get my attention, but it's always so obvious that no one ever wants the attention of me, Ginny. They just care about 'the Princess Ginevra'. So, when you first didn't even _pretend_ to pay attention to me, which was so unlike all the courtiers I've had to deal with all these years, and then after I called you out on it, truly listened to what I was saying, I knew that I had found someone special."

Harry couldn't imagine someone not properly paying attention to Ginny. She was light and energy and warmth and a breath fresh air, even in the stuffy ballroom. Not only that, she was one of the most animated and fascinating people Harry had ever had the pleasure to talk to.

Someone being willing to genuinely listen and get to know Ginny should have been the rule, not the exception.

Before he could begin to try and order these thoughts into a proper response, Ginny continued, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to make this about me. You must think I'm so spoiled with all these people fawning after me, and me being so ungrateful about it."

"No!" Harry burst out, stunned that she could even think this. "People should want to get to know the real you, and being upset that people would rather only meet your title isn't spoiled, it's human!"

Ginny shook herself and gave him a small, crooked smile, "Thank you for reminding me of that Harry. I can usually remember it, but it's always harder after one of these state events."

Harry nodded and said, "I'm sure they bring up all the memories of your past bad experiences."

"They do. Oh! Do you mind if I change the subject for a moment? I just remembered something from earlier that I meant to ask you about."

Harry was a little relieved that they were moving from these topics, since they made him feel so out of his depth, and said, "Yeah of course, what did you want to ask?"

"Why did Hermione address her question about how we met to just me? She didn't seem like the type to ignore a friend in favor of talking to, well, 'The Princess', but I don't know what else to think," Ginny said, trailing off.

"Oh, she did that because she knows me," Harry answered, "I, uh, tend to be a bit reticent and she, probably pretty accurately, assumed that she would get a better response if she directed her question at you instead of me."

Ginny smiled in relief and said, "I was hoping you would say something like that, she seems really nice and she makes Daphne happy and I'd have hated it if she turned out to be another royal groupie."

"It's hard to imagine Hermione being a groupie– the one time she was one, it was for Gilderoy Lockhart, and when he turned out to be a fraud, she was a tiny bit heartbroken and a whole lot furious. Since then, she's done a good job of recognizing that people are only human."

"She seems like a smart cookie, if it only took one lesson for it to sink in," Ginny said.

They both subsided into comfortable silence, Ginny's hand still resting on Harry's knee.

Out of nowhere, Ginny asked, "Do you want to dance some more?"

"I don't want to go back to the ballroom," Harry replied nervously. "But I did love dancing with you."

Ginny smiled slyly and stood up, using her wand to banish the furniture to the edges of the room. Then she gave her wand a final wave and the room was filled with the sound of gentle music, the perfect kind for slow dancing.

Harry's chair had joined the rest of the furniture in moving to the edge of the room, so he stood up and rejoined Ginny in the center of the room.

It was easier than breathing to settle back into the rhythm of dancing with Ginny. They didn't do anything fancy as they danced, mindful of the size of the room, and Harry couldn't help but feel that the dancing was more to give them an excuse to hold each other than it was to actually dance.

Between the music and the empty room, Harry's world narrowed down, once again, to just the two of them. Nothing else mattered but Ginny's hand in his, her waist under his other hand, and the places their bodies occasionally met as they stepped in tandem in a simple diamond pattern.

Once again, Ginny's hand drifted up from his waist to grasp the back of his neck, and this time, Harry was the one to tilt his head to the appropriate angle.

But their first kiss was not to be, because then the castle was filled with the sound of the clocktower bell tolling.

Harry's heart lurched far worse than it had when he'd seen Petunia. He had to get out of here _now_. He had to get back to the Dursley's house before the Dursley's. Because he couldn't risk getting back after them when there was a small chance that Petunia hadn't seen him, when getting back on time could mean that he might be able to get away with tonight.

He desperately wanted to avoid trouble with the Dursley's so he could preserve this near-perfect night in his memory without tainting it with more contact with them, or even worse, with a punishment from them.

He staggered to his feet before the bell tolled again, "I have to go!" He cried, running for the door.

Ginny's grip on his hand tightened and he could tell that she wanted to keep him from leaving, but he yanked his hand free of hers in a move that felt like he was ripping his heart in two at the same time.

Harry pulled the door open and sprinted toward where his instincts said the exit was. As he went, he heard Ginny yell after him, and his heart tore just a little more as he continued his desperate rush out of the castle and to where he had hidden the broom.

In his blind panic, he failed to notice that his hat had fallen off. It would sit in the room where they had danced, unnoticed, until the next day when Ginny returned to search for clues as to the mystery boy who had captured her attention and who owed her a kiss.

* * *

Harry's instincts lead him accurately through the castle and across the castle grounds. He crashed through the forest taking the most direct path possible to where he had hidden the broom.

As the clock finished tolling, his handsome outfit finished its transformation back into the tattered remains he had been wearing when his Dogfather came to him.

His mind was so focused on getting back to the Dursley's, however, that he didn't notice this at all.

As he came up to where he had hidden the broom, he bent down and picked it up without breaking stride and used his momentum to launch himself into the air and onto the broomstick, instantly accelerating as fast he could.

The flight back was much less enjoyable than the flight to the castle had been. The just slightly too cold night air froze his nose, cheeks, and hands. He had the fleeting impression that the night seemed much more sinister now.

Gritting his teeth, Harry shoved down the rising anxiety. He was so focused on his internal struggle that he barely noticed the time it took him to get back at all.

He landed right next to shed and hurriedly put the broom back where he had found it. Then he tore into the house at top speed. Despite his speed, he was sure to wipe his feet and close doors behind him– there could be no evidence that he had been out of bed.

Once safely in his cupboard, he immediately shed the remains of his tattered robes and donned the usual rags that he slept in. He carefully laid down, arranging himself in the best position to quietly catch his breath.

He lay in suspense for far longer than he had thought he would have a chance to. While he was glad that he had clearly beaten the Dursley's back, waiting around like this, unable to do anything, was not good for his heart. He tried to focus his thoughts on more mundane things, like how he must have travelled faster than he thought he did. But his focus didn't last long, and Harry couldn't shake the certainty that Petunia had seen him in the ballroom.

If she had, there would be hell to pay once they got back.

Then Harry tried to distract himself by dwelling in his memories of the evening. But he couldn't manage to relax enough to because he was just too wound up waiting for the Dursley's to return for his mind to hold onto the memories.

Finally, he tried occupying his thoughts with mentally running through his path through the house, verifying that he had left everything just the way he was supposed to. This worked well enough, and during his fourth mental run through, the Dursley's finally did come through the front door.

And for the third time that night, Harry's heart stopped.

Seconds after the Dursley's came through the door, Harry's cupboard door was slammed open. He was still dazed from the shock when Vernon's large hand reached in painfully grabbed Harry's arm. Vernon squeezed it viciously as he wrenched on it to pull Harry out of the cupboard.

Vernon let go once Harry was clear of the cupboard, and he scrambled to get his feet under him so he could at least be standing on his own, when Vernon's hand went for Harry's neck.

He immediately collapsed his legs that he hadn't quite managed to get under him, and twisted his downward momentum to the side, out of Vernon's grasp. This, unfortunately, put him in a corner that Vernon immediately rushed to block him into, but at least Harry had escaped the stranglehold for the moment.

"Vernon!" Petunia screeched. "You can't kill him! Think of the law!"

"You saw him at the Ball. So, he was at the _very place_ that we had explicitly. Ordered him. Not. _To_. **_Go_**." Vernon ground out these last few words and took a menacing step toward the corner where Harry was cowering.

Harry waited until Petunia spoke again, thus distracting Vernon, to pull his feet under himself so he could watch his fate be decided on his own two feet.

"Yes, well, killing him is still illegal," Petunia insisted, with a nervous look at Vernon's still clenching and unclenching hands. "Why don't we just put him in the attic until you've calmed down a bit dear, it's not like he's going anywhere."

Vernon gave Harry one last dirty look with his beady eyes and said with a grunt, "Fine, shut him in the attic, but if I hear one peep out of him before I'm ready to deal with him. Well," he clenched and unclenched his hands one more time, significantly, "I'd better not hear anything."

Harry nodded frantically. He was too afraid to comply with their usual demand of verbal answers because he was so worried that if he made noise, he'd set Vernon off again.

Petunia grabbed Harry's arm with her claw like hand, digging her nails in, and began dragging Harry up the many flights of stairs to the attic.

Rather than dwell on the occasional glare that Petunia shot his way, he absently recalled the various chores he had completed as they passed various rooms. It was a pointless exercise, but Harry had little else to distract him from dwelling on all the terrible things he had to dwell on.

When they arrived at the single dingy door that lead to the final set of stairs, Petunia pulled her keyring out of her clutch and unlocked the door.

Harry had started to walk in of his own volition when she dug her hand into his back and shoved Harry through the door.

Almost before Harry was clear of the threshold, she slammed the door shut and locked it with a resounding, ominous click. Through the keyhole she said, "You heard Vernon. If you make a single sound, I won't be able to stop him from killing you. Don't expect food."

He heard her footsteps trail away, and once he was sure he was alone, he let himself give into the shaking that he had felt coming on from the moment he had been yanked out of his cupboard.

Harry was afraid that if he stayed at the bottom of the staircase, he'd accidentally make a sound and bring Vernon's wrath down on him, so managing the shaking as best as he could, he made his slow and silent way up the stairs.

The attic was a large, empty room, with a single circular window that looked down on the driveway. There was far less dust than Harry was expecting there to be considering he had never been up here to dust.

He did know that at some point Petunia had sold or gotten rid of just about everything that used to be kept up here because he had been specifically ordered to go to town that day. On his way out, he'd spotted some traveling merchants on the way to the Dursleys' house. And then, when he'd come back, he'd spotted them on the road traveling away from the Dursley's, laden with furniture and chests that Harry didn't recognize.

When nothing was missing from anywhere else in the house, he'd had to assume the goods had come from the attic, which was the one room he wasn't allowed in.

Looking around, Harry had the thought that if the Dursley's hadn't kept the door locked, it would have been the perfect hideaway for Harry.

Well, it had now become the perfect hideaway for him, even if he wasn't exactly willingly hiding away. Harry could just make out a single tarp, of the kind typically used to cover furniture while painting, in the corner of the room.

There were no lamps in the room, and it was quite dark out, so it was hard to see much of anything else in the room.

Harry carefully and silently made his way to the tarp and unfolded it just enough for him to lie on his side- ever careful of his lingering injuries, between two halves of it, so he was protected from the slight chill of the empty room and hard surface of the bare floor.

As he lay there, wrapped in the rough tarp, he decided that he was really quite lucky all things considered. Vernon could so easily have killed him, and while he couldn't summon up the energy to be grateful to Petunia for stopping Vernon, he did feel more positively dispositioned towards her than he had in years.

His thoughts drifted off into remembering that moment where Vernon had tried to strangle him. And Harry was absolutely stunned to realize that he had dodged Vernon– and gotten away with it!

His thoughts stopped for a moment in the aftermath of this shocking realization.

Harry had never, not once, dodged Vernon before. He had always known that it would only end badly for him because Vernon would only escalate the situation in revenge. This was possibly the only situation where he could possibly have gotten away with dodging Vernon without harming himself further.

He had the odd thought that Ginny would have been proud of him. He had no idea where the thought came from since really, she probably wouldn't have cared one way or the other. But since there was no harm in it, he decided to take a moment to bask in her imagined pride.

Harry was utterly exhausted after the emotional pendulum of a day that he had had. And since all the Dursley's were likely in bed sleeping off the alcohol from the complementary bar at the Ball, Harry had to conclude that he was as safe as he could be within the walls of the Dursley's home.

With this decided, his shaking became much less violent, and he was almost able to relax into the tarp.

Now that he was somewhat settled, he could finally turn his thoughts to committing his time at the Ball to his memory. A moment later he was shocked to realize that he had automatically started at the moment he'd met Ginny. But a lot had happened before he got to that moment that he wanted to commit to memory as well.

He'd gotten to meet one of his parents' friends and had had real magic performed on him for the first time in his life. Then he'd gotten to fly all the way to the castle, which was just as beautiful as he'd always dreamed it would be. And, of course, then he'd met Ginny.

He never wanted to forget what the best night of his life so far had been, and what would most likely be the best night of his life, ever.

As he relived the wonderful night, he eventually fell asleep with the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

* * *

AN: please! review!


	5. Chapter 5

Harry woke far earlier than he would have chosen to after the long night he'd had, but the single window in the attic was an eastern facing one, so when the sun rose, he did too.

In the light of day, Harry was able to properly examine his new surroundings. The room was larger than most of other single rooms in the house, but smaller than the entire floor would be. The ceiling sloped awkwardly because it followed the line of the roof. The space was clearly devoid of furniture or other fillers. The walls were bare drywall that were painted a differentially faded grey– the wall facing the window was much more faded than the other walls were.

The only item of interest in the room was what appeared to be a fireplace. Harry got to his feet, folding the tarp after he got up, then walked over to examine the fireplace. He was disappointed to see that the fireplace had been blocked off at some point, and had clearly not been cleaned out afterward, because there was a small pile of charcoal amid all the dust, dirt, and soot.

Harry released a heavy sigh of relief. The charcoal would be a lifesaver, because if he had been forced to pass the time with absolutely nothing to distract him from his thoughts, he didn't think the results would have been very good. He only had the one night of good memories to think about, amid a sea of bad ones, after all.

And he knew, in a vague sort of way, that eventually Vernon would eventually come up to the attic. After the night before, Harry could be reasonably sure that Vernon would deliver what would probably be the worst beating he had ever received. He wasn't sure if that would be the end of it, but at least he could reasonably sure that Petunia wouldn't let Vernon kill him.

However, he kept those kinds of thoughts as vague as he could manage. It didn't do him any good to worry about things he couldn't change.

He shook his head briefly to clear his head of these thoughts and climbed to his feet. He determinedly ignored his growing thirst and bent down to sort through the charcoal. He grabbed a likely looking piece and considered what to use as his canvas.

He only had two options: the walls and floor or the tarp. Using either had near equal potential to bring the Dursley's wrath down on him, but if he avoided using the tarp, he would avoid getting charcoal on him when he wrapped himself in the tarp at night to sleep.

This decided, Harry stood in one corner and began to sketch the castle. It would be much like the small drawings he had in his cupboard, except this time he would be drawing from his own memories, rather than his imaginings.

As the day wore on, Harry grew hungrier, thirstier, and weaker.

He had needed to relieve himself at some point in the day, so he had designated the former fireplace, after he cleared it of any salvageable charcoal, to be the spot where he relieved himself.

The attic smelled terribly now. Harry had discovered, after he relieved himself, that the single window was glued shut. But he managed to get so caught up in his drawing, that he hardly noticed the smell. Or his thirst, or his hunger.

He had moved on to drawing Ginny once he was satisfied with his rendition of the castle.

As the sun was setting, he heard a key turn in the lock to the attic. He was so weak from thirst at this point, however, that he couldn't even bring himself to be frightened. He simply put the piece of charcoal down and waited for whoever it was to come to him. He was surprised to realize that, as soon as whoever it was got the door open, they had locked it again.

Once he was sure whoever it had been was gone, Harry cautiously made his way down the stairs, mindful of his deteriorating condition and need to remain silent. Were he not so dehydrated, he might have cried in relief at the sight of the jug of water and single slice of burnt toast sitting on a chipped platter, just inside the doorway.

He sat down, right there by the door, and nibbled at the toast, occasionally taking small sips of water. He knew from long experience that he would only end up hurting himself and wasting limited resources if he tried to consume either the food or the water too quickly.

When he was about halfway through the piece of toast, he was forced to ask himself if it was worth rationing it out. As he stared at the half of a slice of bread that he held in his hand, he came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth it, so he slowly finished consuming the bread.

Once he was done eating, he had a small amount of water left. Using both hands, he ever so carefully brought the pitcher of water up the stairs. Even the short amount of time he'd spent near the door had been enough to make him nervous about disturbing Vernon.

Then Harry returned to working on his drawing of Ginny. He quickly discovered, to his dismay, that another consequence of the east-facing window was that it got dark in the attic before the sun had truly set. He kept at his drawing for as long as he could, hoping to exhaust himself as much as possibly as he could before going to sleep.

Far too soon, he ran out of daylight. He sighed in disappointment and carefully set his charcoal down on the ground. Then he made his way over to the side of the attic farthest from the fireplace and wrapped himself in his tarp, hoping to lose himself in his memories of the Ball– and Ginny– once again.

* * *

The next morning, Harry woke with the sun again. Since he was up anyways, he decided to take advantage of the eastward facing window to watch the sunrise. He sleepily– and weakly–made his way over to the window and sat down on the broad ledge it formed in the wall.

Watching the colors of the sunset spread across the sky made Harry wish, more than ever, that he had a colored medium to work with. As grateful as he was that he had anything at all to work with, it would have been nice to work with colors too.

When the sun was well clear of the horizon, Harry climbed down from the window and picked up the charcoal again. When he'd had to quit last night, he had been working on Ginny's eyes. He was hoping that, with a fresh mind, he'd finally be able to capture the glint in her eye.

Time seemed to pass in a syrupy haze as Harry flitted around refining his masterpiece. When there was nothing left to work on, he worked on adding Daphne and Hermione to join Ginny.

Sometimes, he would glance out the window after what felt like ages only to see that the sun had not moved at all, and sometimes, he would glance out the window after what felt like mere seconds and see that the sun had rocketed across the sky.

With no chores to complete in a timely manner and nobody to yell at him, Harry was adrift in a sea of now meaningless time.

As he was starting on a crude sketch of his Dogfather, he was shocked to hear the– very muffled– sound of a carriage and several horses making their way up the driveway towards the Dursley's house. Checking the sky for the sun, Harry saw that it had slipped behind the house and out of his view. Since his grasp on the passage of time was loose at best, it could be practically any time after noon but before sunset.

He felt a wave of curiosity at who could possibly be calling on the Dursley's– they didn't have any friends that dropped by unexpectedly, let alone any friends at all. He decided to indulge his curiosity, so set down his charcoal and laboriously pull himself into the window. From here, he had a view of the driveway and therefore a view of the visitors.

And he nearly fell right back off the ledge when he saw that a carriage and full patrol of the Royal Guard were making their way towards the house. The Royal Guard's presence must mean that at least one member of the royal family was present.

Harry's mind went into overdrive trying to reason out what any of the royal family would be doing calling on the Dursley's. A small, stupidly hopeful, voice insisted that Ginny had come for him. He immediately squashed the thought and considered more realistic possibilities.

The presence of a full patrol suggested that they expected some trouble from whatever business they had here. That meant that they were likely here to prosecute one of the residents for a high offense. Harry thought through the various laws that would be significant enough that a member of the royal family would accompany the guard. The most probable thing he could think of was the possibility that one of the Dursley's offended the royal family badly enough that they would come to personally see them arrested.

Harry had certainly left early enough for him to have missed something significant, like one of the Dursley's insulting the royal family, though why they wouldn't have simply been arrested on the spot eluded Harry.

Then there was the possibility that Dudley's long list of misdemeanors had finally caught up with him, or that Vernon's business wasn't as compliant with the law as he liked to say it was. Maybe Petunia's gossiping had finally crossed the line into overt stalking or coercion.

He entertained himself for the duration of the time it took the royal party to travel up the driveway with the thought of all three of the Dursley's finally getting their comeuppance for being genuinely bad people. He knew the world didn't work that way, but it was nice to imagine that it did.

As the carriage came to a halt, Harry realized that, as far up as he was, there was no way that he'd be able to hear anything that was said, unless he figured out a way to get the window at least partially open. He started running his hands over the frame of the window, searching for a weak spot in its sealing.

When he could find no weak spots, he desperately started pushing at the edges of the window, not really expecting to succeed. He was shocked when the round window creaked open, as if rotating like a globe, by a degree or two. Harry tried to wedge it open further than the inch or two that he had managed, and quickly had to give it up as hopeless. He was simply too weak to manage it.

He was still shocked that the window had opened at all, but he wasn't one to question it the few times things had gone right for him. Harry settled in to listen and hoped most of the business would be conducted outside where he could hear it.

Positioning his ear close to the window, Harry caught the tail end of the sound of a herald knocking on the front door and summoning all three Dursley's outside, along with him, Harry.

He looked regretfully, and a tinge anxiously, at the locked door behind him. If given the choice, he would have complied with the guard. Thankfully, he was reasonably sure Ginny wasn't the type to send the Royal Guard after him for being disrespectful, so he was fairly certain that they had not come to prosecute Harry for anything. But Harry worried that that would change when he failed to comply with the summons.

After the initial summons, things started happening in quick succession.

Petunia and Vernon came through the front door together. Vernon said, with his usual bluster, "The wife and I are here now, what do you want."

"We want the rest of the people we summoned to join us before we conduct our business," the herald replied primly.

"My boy is busy and the fr– Potter boy isn't here, so whatever you need to say, can be said to us," Vernon said. "If Potter's gone and gotten himself into trouble, you can rest assured that he will be punished," Vernon added, with a hopeful lilt to his dull voice.

Harry grimaced at the reminder that Vernon was going to punish him. And he was seemingly not the only one upset by this, because then there was a commotion as Ginny charged out of the crowd of Royal Guards.

She must have ridden a horse here, because she was wearing a riding helmet, padded breeches, and tall riding boots. Just now, however, she was practically flying on foot towards Vernon, one hand still wrapped around her riding crop.

In the seconds before one of the guards snagged an arm around her waist, Ginny swung the crop back and slashed it down across Vernon's face with a sharp crack. The guard held her back from crossing to the doorway where Vernon stood, and she halted after a moment's struggle. Then, in a single fluid motion before anyone could stop her, Ginny pulled her wand out of a boot holster, and cast a hex at Vernon.

Harry thought it might be the bat bogey hex he had heard it was her specialty, but it didn't last long enough for him to tell for sure, because one of the guards quickly cancelled it. Harry wished he was close enough to see facial expressions because he had a feeling that Ginny's was something else at the moment.

Harry watched the doors on the carriage open as he listened to Ginny loudly berate the guard for cancelling her hex. She was still going at full strength when the king and queen stepped onto the driveway.

"Ginny dear," King Arthur said, interrupting her tirade, "You know you can't go around striking and hexing the people who make you angry. That's what the courts are for," he chided gently.

Ginny subsided with a grimace, and Harry couldn't help but be disappointed. He had enjoyed watching her fight against the guard's grip on her while yelling expletives at the guard who had cancelled her spell, all while shooting Vernon constant death glares.

Dudley chose that moment to finally show up, still holding the lute that he must have been playing when the summons had been issued.

"What do you want?" He demanded angrily. "I was playing my lute!"

Harry snorted quietly at Dudley's ability to sound like a petulant child, even now, when he was technically an adulthood, just as Harry was.

The herald from earlier perked up, seeming pleased at something. Harry wondered if the herald had been waiting for this to happen.

"You, Vernon, and Petunia Dursley along with Mr. Harry Potter have been summoned to appear here before your King and Queen," The herald declared pompously. "If Mr. Potter would come out, we could get on with things," he finished significantly.

Harry muttered quietly, "I would if I could."

At the same time, Vernon blustered, "Listen here, I told you that the boy disappeared! If you're not going to say what you came here to say, then go. I've got better things to do with my time."

Ginny and the king and queen seemed to hold a whispered conference. Harry's heart plummeted because, surely, they were going to leave now at his seeming refusal to show up. Although… Maybe that was a good thing. He still didn't know what they wanted with him.

His urge to comply with the royal order warred with his anxiety at the unknown. He started to push at the side of the window again to try and get it to budge open but remained silent.

Before either side of his internal battle managed to gain any further ground, Ginny announced, "My spell says Harry is somewhere in the vicinity. I'm going to go search for him while my parents deal with you lot."

Harry's heart began to pound and before he processed what he was doing, he was standing in the middle of the attic. He froze as he debated between going back to the window and listening in the hopes that someone would mention what, precisely, Ginny meant by 'deal with', and his urge to run to the door to wait for Ginny, so he could be ready to alert her of his presence.

After several, long, indecision filled moments, he realized what his gaze had been fixed on. It was the drawing he'd made of Ginny, and truly seeing it brought his memories of the Ball flooding back into his mind.

This finally allowed the side that was urging him to go wait for Ginny by the door to win, and win by a landslide, at that.

He clambered down the stairs, heedless of any noise he might make, or the risk of falling down the stairs. He eagerly pressed his ear to the door in anticipation of when she came down the hallway, though his more logical side reminded him that she still had the rest of the house to search.

Time still felt sticky like syrup, so he couldn't quite say how long it was before he heard the glorious sound of Ginny coming through the house. He started to bang on the door, pushing the exhaustion and weakness he could feel lurking heavy in his mind to the fringes of his consciousness. He was pretty sure that, once he'd attracted her attention, he'd be able to rest soon. And he needed to be loud because the door was so inconspicuous, that if he wasn't, she'd miss the door entirely.

He heard, in the space between his knocking, her gait change from a purposeful walk to a pounding run, and before he knew it, the door was torn off its hinges, and he was being pulled into Ginny's arms.

She held him carefully as if he were something fragile and precious, and it was this gentleness that caused the dams within Harry's soul to burst open. He realized he was crying and tried to pull away from Ginny so that he could turn away and hide his weakness from her, but she only tightened her grip.

Weak from dehydration and hunger, Harry was quickly forced to abandon his struggle to pull away and helplessly pressed his face into her neck.

"It's okay now, Harry," Ginny murmured soothingly, "Just let it all out."

Harry took her advice as best as he could, but he stopped crying long before he felt emotionally wrung out. He must be too dehydrated to continue losing water through his tears.

He pulled away from Ginny again, and this time she let him get a bit further away, before she tightened her grip.

"How long has it been since you ate or drank?" Ginny asked. After a moment, she added, "Or had a bath?"

Harry's face burned in shame at the reminder that he must smell and look pretty terrible. He looked away and shrugged because he couldn't be entirely sure. The toast had been gone since yesterday, and the water had run out sometime early this morning, and as far as a bath, he couldn't begin to guess when that was.

"Hey, none of that," Ginny said when he didn't immediately respond. She put her fingers under his chin and directed his gaze towards hers, "None of this was your fault, okay? I don't care what they told you, nobody deserves to be treated like this. I just need to know about the food and water so I can tell how dire the situation is. I'm absolute shite at diagnostic charms so I have to ask you."

He had to shift his gaze away from her burning one before he could answer, "I had a piece of toast yesterday and I drank a jug of water that ran out this morning."

Ginny's grip on his forearms tightened ever so slightly when he said that, but she was still holding him so carefully that her grip didn't even come close to being uncomfortable.

Then she released one of his arms, pulled out her wand, and conjured a glass full of water. She handed the glass to him and said, "Drink it carefully, you could strain your body if you're not careful."

Harry just barely stopped himself from saying, 'I know', now sure that it would upset her if he did. Instead, he agreeably sipped at the water under Ginny's watchful gaze.

Once he finished the first glass, she banished it and said, "I'm going to cast a general health booster on you now, only, I'm not the best at them, so it probably won't last very long."

"Oh, thank you," Harry said gratefully.

She kept one of her hands on one of his shoulders and used the other to wave her wand in a fairly complicated pattern. Her face was frozen in a frown of concentration until she finished the spell.

Immediately after the spell was cast, the headache Harry didn't even know he had eased, his muscles unclenched, and the scrapes and bruises Vernon's manhandling had given him closed over or faded.

"That was incredible," Harry said gratefully. He held his arm up to his face and poked at the spot a particularly deep bruise had been. It didn't hurt at all.

She blushed and said, "It's not all that."

"No, it is!" Harry insisted. He frowned slightly and stared at her blush for a moment. He needed her to know that what she did was special. "You just– waved your wand and made things happen! And you didn't even have to. You have to know that you're talented and smart and–" He cut himself off before he could get carried away or freak her out.

Ginny cocked her head to the side, a light blush still tinting her face pink.

Harry knew that, for people of the same class, maintaining eye contact was a sign of honesty. And he remembered her saying that classes didn't matter as much at the castle…

He steeled himself for a potentially bad reaction and firmly met her eyes, doing his best to convey his earnestness nonverbally.

She blinked and stared into his eyes for a long moment. Harry distantly thought that her eyes really were quite pretty– they were warm and brown, and the longer Harry got to stare, the clearer he could see that there were golden flecks of color amidst the brown.

"You really mean it, don't you?" Ginny asked, finally breaking the silence.

Harry found himself frowning again. "Why would I say it if – those dignitaries you were telling me about, at the Ball, they say nice things, and don't mean it, don't they?" It was hard to fathom that someone would be able to say a compliment they didn't mean, but it was the only thing he could think of that would make sense.

"Everyone says things they don't mean to me, to everyone in my family, really. If they think saying something will make us more likely to help them out or do things for them, they'll say it regardless of if they mean it," Ginny said.

She cleared her throat, then continued, "So, I learned pretty young that the only people I could trust to mean a compliment were my family, and some of the family's closest servants. But here you are, barely knowing me, and already meaning what you say."

Harry gently reached up and grabbed her hand from where it still rested lightly on his shoulder, then squeezed it reassuringly. He wasn't entirely sure why she was sharing so much, but he could tell that she wasn't sharing these things lightly. "I don't know much about people saying nice things that they don't mean to me," Harry said, mentally amending that to 'nice things at all' before he realized that, since Ginny seemed to be completely honest with him, he ought to return the favor.

"Or nice things at all, really," he verbally amended. "But I do know something about people around me lying to me, and I know that it's terrible and makes you doubt the world around you. And I promise that I'll honest with you," Harry said, though he wondered how often he'd even get the chance to speak to her. She was the princess, after all, and probably very busy.

And he still didn't know what was going on.

Ginny returned the squeeze to his hand and said, "I promise to be honest with you as well. No matter what."

"No matter what," Harry echoed.

It felt as though something truly significant had just passed between them. They held still in the moment. Harry barely dared to breathe, in case he ruined it.

Eventually though, the moment passed.

Ginny slapped herself on the forehead and said, "Oh right! I almost forgot." Then she released his hand and started patting herself down until she seemed to find what she was looking for.

Brushing off the piece of fabric she'd pulled out of her pocket, she said, "I almost forgot to give this back to you!" She placed, what Harry finally recognized as a crumpled hat, onto his head. And not just any crumpled hat, it was the one that he had worn to the Ball. He wondered why it hadn't disappeared along with the other things his Dogfather had conjured.

Harry gently patted the hat on his head and said, "I'd forgotten that I'd even worn a hat that night. And I can't believe you bothered to bring it back to me." The corner of his lip quirked upwards in a crooked half smile.

"It's to do with you, so of course it was worth it," Ginny replied threading her arm back around his.

At this, Harry had to stare at her. They had just promised not to lie to each other, so he knew that she meant it, but it was such a small thing. It was hard to believe that someone as incredible as Ginny would think that Harry was important enough to go out of her way to return his hat, of all things.

"Thank you," Harry said simply, feeling a bit like a parrot, with the number of times he'd already said the words.

"You're welcome," Ginny returned with a warm smile. "Besides," she added, "you look rather dashing like that."

All Harry could do with that was smile back at her.

They stood there in the hallway outside the door to the attic for a moment, and Harry took the time to enjoy being in her presence. Afterwards, Ginny tugged his hand and set off down the hallway to one of the rooms on this floor. Harry recognized it as Vernon and Petunia's favorite, private, parlor. A small part of his mind protested that he was not supposed to be in here, without express permission, but he quieted it with the reminder that Ginny outranked Vernon and Petunia.

Ginny sat them down on a small couch and conjured another glass and filled it with her wand.

As Harry sipped the second glass of water, he gradually became uncomfortably aware of how grungy and just plain dirty he was. He never got to bathe after all the dancing at the Ball, and then he'd been locked in the attic for the next two days. His clothes certainly didn't help the situation since they were the rags that he chose to sleep in and were certainly not fit for company of any kind.

He tried to turn his attention to something else and as soon as he pulled it from his discomfort with his hygiene and appearance, his attention glued itself to his leg, side, arm, and hand– all places were his body was pressed against Ginny's.

The couch was really quite small, so his leg and side were pressed against hers. He could feel the pleasant warmth of her body through both their layers of clothes and he helplessly flushed. She was also still holding his hand, and the part of his mind that had been sure that Ginny had come for him started making noise about how she liked him.

This time, he was not nearly so fast to quash the thought, though he did reluctantly after a brief moment of basking in the near-impossible possibility.

Clutching the glass of water more tightly in his hand, Harry mustered up the nerve to ask, "What made you find me? And how did you even find me?"

"That's quite the story," Ginny said with a hint of pride in her voice. "While I tell you, though, you have to keep drinking that water."

Harry nodded and took a sip of the water. Since he was being bold, he turned himself slightly so he could make eye contact with her as she told the story. She didn't seem to mind and smiled at him before she started into the story.

"So, after you ran off, I tried to follow you again. But one of the castle guards stopped me from making it outside, since it was after midnight, and not 'not safe for me,' or whatever. A part of me wanted to start searching for you right away, but I knew I'd be able to more effectively search in the morning when people would be awake and sober enough to help me, so I dodged everyone who wanted to talk to me and went to sleep, hoping that a good night's sleep would help me search too. I didn't sleep all that well, but I did at least _try_.

"Anyways," she said, with a small shake of her head, "the next morning, I got up and as soon as I was ready, I went back to the storage rooms, both of them, to see if you'd left anything behind that I could use to track you. I did find your hat in the room we went to after we danced in the ballroom, but that was pretty useless in terms of tracking you down. I held onto it, though, so I could give it back to you.

"Then, because I knew I was going to have to involve my parents eventually, I went and found them, and told them all about you.

"How you caught my attention, though I glossed over the exact details of our meeting, and how you were so sweet and such a good dancer. I could've kept going, but time was of the essence, so I did my best to keep it short." She smiled at him, and Harry was hard-pressed not to do something stupid like start crying. He wasn't sure why, precisely, this brought him so close to the verge of tears.

But he didn't have time to truly spiral, because then Ginny continued.

"And I told them what you told me about your relatives. I'm really sorry I had to do that since I'm pretty sure you'd prefer no one know, but I had to, Harry, in order to get them to approve the level of search I wanted. If I hadn't, it might've taken weeks to find you," She paused here and gave him a pleading look.

"I can understand why you told them," Harry said slowly, trying hard not to dwell on that. He did believe that she would only have told her parents if she absolutely had to. Then, more resolutely, "So, what happened next?"

"Well, I got the manhunt that I wanted. The next step was finding Daphne and getting her to tell me your full name. Some people were assigned to searching the census for relevant information. Unfortunately, Daphne had no idea where you live, so we wasted a bit of time finding Hermione and asking her, who could only point us in a general direction.

"We then reconvened with the people searching the census, and once I informed them that you were living with your aunt and uncle, it was easy to see that your only living aunt and uncle are the Dursley's. From there, it was a simple matter of pulling the real estate records. But by the time we had definitive names, the records office had closed, and my parents refused to let me go get the office workers from their homes. So, we had to wait till today to pull the records."

"That's _how_ you found me," Harry stated. "But that still doesn't answer _why_?"

He had to know what could possibly have driven her to put in so much time and effort to find him.

"I think… that's a conversation we don't quite have the time for, right now. I think we ought to save that conversation for after we go catch up with my parents and finish conducting our business here," Ginny said.

Then she pulled out her wand and cast, "_Tempus_." This caused a set of numbers to appear in the air– the time, Harry realized. "We'd actually better get back down quickly to my parents and see how everything's going with them, because it's been quite a while since I came into this house."

As much as Harry itched to learn what had driven Ginny to search so urgently for him, he was readily willing to delay soothing that itch, since it seemed important that they get moving.

After Harry discretely tucked the now empty glass into his cavernous pockets, he remembered something that he wanted to show her. This might be his last chance to show it to her, so he risked saying, "I know we're running late, but would you mind terribly if we took a moment for me to show you something first?"

"I think we have enough time, if it's quick," Ginny replied instantly.

"It'll just take a moment," Harry reassured her, with a relieved smile. He guided Ginny back to the stairs to the attic, where she'd ripped the door off the wall. They hurried up the stairs, and Harry began to question the sanity of his decision to show her this.

It was too late for him to change his mind, though, and when he heard the gasp of wonder she gave at the sight of the drawings decorating the walls, he was glad he hadn't been able to chicken out.

"I know it's not that great," Harry began. "But I was thinking of you when I drew most of it, and this is probably the only chance I'll get to show it to you so…" he trailed off.

Ginny was circling the room, taking in the details of the things he'd drawn on the plain walls of the attic. She drifted over to his portrait of her, and Harry could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks again. He didn't quite regret his decision to show her, but he was definitely embarrassed.

"I, uh, hope you like it," he stammered, not looking directly at her.

"Harry, this is absolutely incredible," Ginny said wonderingly, "You did this with charcoal?"

"Yeah, it was all I had to work with," Harry replied, unable to help the pang of shame he felt at his lack of resources– and skills, for that matter.

"This is absolutely incredible," Ginny repeated, "And you did all this, with charcoal, of all things."

They stood in companionable silence for a moment, but then the distant sound of Vernon's roaring quickly interrupted the peace.

"We'd better get going out there," Ginny said, with a last look the drawing of her.

"Yes, right, sorry," Harry said, slipping his hand into hers to lead the way out of the attic.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ginny cock her head as she said, "What are you sorry for?"

"For taking your valuable time," Harry said.

"Your art isn't a waste of time, Harry," Ginny said, squeezing his hand.

Harry nodded at this. He didn't want to disagree with her, but he didn't quite agree, so he decided to say nothing.

They made their way through the house, neither rushing nor going particularly slowly. When they made their way down the light flight of steps to the ground floor, Harry felt as though he ought to make a detour to the cupboard under the stairs.

But then he tried to think of something, anything, that he would miss from the dismal closet, and though he wracked his brain, he couldn't think of anything. Even his childish pictures of the castle were something he'd rather leave in the past, especially since he couldn't quite quash the hope that he would be seeing a lot more of it in the future.

As they clambered out of the house and onto the driveway, they stumbled into a minor fracas. Vernon was a couple meters away, swinging his massive fists at anyone who came within range– mostly unlucky Royal Guards, but occasionally he'd take a swing at a horse. And a couple meters away from that, the leader of the Royal Guard was organizing her squad to tame him.

Ginny muttered under her breath at the sight of this. Without hesitation, she quickly whipped out her wand and with one fluid motion, stunned him in his tracks. Harry still could not get over how talented she was.

"Ginny!" Queen Molly said sharply, before subsiding when King Arthur placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

"He was hurting our people," Ginny defended herself before she could be further reprimanded. "It was better to take him out, painlessly, I might add, than it was to let him continue beating on Our Guards."

The guards secured Vernon's hands behind his back and loaded him unconsciously into the carriage that Harry could now see was meant more for transporting prisoners than it was for transporting royals.

Petunia was quickly similarly bound and loaded in next to Vernon. Having spotted two of the Dursley's, Harry instinctively looked around for Dudley.

Harry spotted Dudley standing a meter or two away with a guard hovering at his elbow. Dudley seemed more interested in inspecting his lute, than he was in his parents being arrested, which was just so typically Dudley, that Harry had to laugh.

Harry pointed at Dudley and nudged Ginny, "Do you know what they're gonna do with him?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the conversations occurring nearby.

"Ah, I think that's what my parents are discussing now," Ginny said, gesturing over to where the King and Queen were speaking animatedly to each other.

Harry and Ginny continued to stand just outside the doorway. Harry wasn't sure what he wanted to have happen to Dudley and he certainly didn't want to interrupt a conversation between the King and the Queen, so he was content to stand in silence with Ginny by his side.

A moment later, he frowned at the carriage that held Vernon and Petunia. He couldn't quite figure out why Petunia had been arrested. Vernon had probably been arrested for assaulting the guards, but Petunia had been reasonably compliant, from what he'd seen. Before he could continue wondering, however, King Arthur was speaking, and Harry turned his focus to listening.

"We have decided," King Arthur said, "that since Dudley is still just a minor and has been reasonably compliant this afternoon, he will be sent to a foster home to learn a trade until he is of age. At which point, he will have to begin to earn his own keep, rather than the state paying for his upkeep."

When nobody moved, King Arthur added, "He'll ride with his parents back to the castle, but he's not under arrest."

At this, the guard that had been standing near Dudley guided him– and consequently, Dudley's lute– into the carriage, though his hands remained unbound.

"Excuse me, your majesty," Harry said, unable to suppress his confusion, "But what's going on? Why did you arrest Vernon and Petunia?"

Just about everybody looked at him in shock, and Harry's heart stuttered as he instantly dropped to his knees. "Forgive me for forgetting myself, your majesties." Before he could really get into a mental stride of berating himself for being disrespectful, though, Ginny was pulling him to his feet.

"They weren't shocked at your disrespect or lack of decorum, or any other trivial thing like that, Harry, they were shocked that you had to ask. They were arrested for abuse of authority. Abuse of their authority over you." Ginny stated in a no-nonsense tone.

"Oh," Harry said, leaning heavily on Ginny, and still trying to calm himself down from his fright seconds ago.

Ginny continued, "I forgot to mention that, while I was running all over the place searching for you, my parents were pushing through laws against the abuse of children and servants. Because when I told my parents about what had happened to you, they had decided to stop worrying about upsetting the stodgy old men on the Royal Council and push through the laws that they really should have passed ages ago."

Since Harry was no longer a child, he must have qualified under those laws as a servant. But he no longer had a family to serve, so he no longer had a place to live. Harry said hesitantly, mostly to himself, "Where am I going to go now?"

Nobody responded to this, and, remembering his ridiculous hopes of living at the castle from earlier, Harry braced himself to ask, "Is, is there any way I could come live at the castle? I swear I'd be useful, I'm good at a variety of chores including cleaning and cooking, and I'd be happy to help anywhere you need it."

He continued, gaining momentum when no one interrupted him, "I don't even need much of anything to keep going, just somewhere to sleep for a bit–"

"Stop! Stop," Ginny cut him off, "We don't need any more servants at the castle."

Harry's heart fell and he pulled his hand out of Ginny's so he could wrap his arms around his torso, "Where–"

She interrupted him again, beginning to sound a little exasperated. "You are going to be living at the castle, silly, just not as a servant. You're much too old to start at Hogwarts now, so you're going to stay with us while I catch you up on all the magic you need to know. With some help from some tutors here and there, I suppose."

"Hogwarts…? Tutors…? Magic…?" Harry echoed, feeling completely lost. "I'm not magic, you know. I never got a Hogwarts letter."

"Mhmm, sure," Ginny said skeptically. "And nothing strange ever happened when you were particularly emotional, did it? Strange, unexplainable things never happened around you, did they? I could try and guess some specific examples, but really all the proof I needed was when you barged into the room I was hi–" she cut herself off, glancing over at her parents.

Then she continued on, "–_staying_ in, and managed to bring the lights on, without even trying. Non-magicals have to press a light switch, and most magicals have to at least gesture to get them to turn on, but you managed with just your intent," she concluded smugly.

Harry stood in stunned silence, before his brain kicked into gear piecing together bits and pieces from over the years. Odd moments here and there that he'd brushed off and ignored were apparently his magic showing itself. And for each moment he could distinctly remember, there were three more behind it, demanding his attention.

Then, long before he had fully processed that he was, apparently, magical, the question of why he'd never received his Hogwarts invitation pushed itself to the forefront of his mind.

And then Harry began to feel overwhelmed because if he was truly magical, and he was beginning to believe that he was, then he had stayed with the Dursley's for no reason at all. If he had been magical, if he had gotten his Hogwarts letter, he would have been able to go to Hogwarts.

If he had been able to go to Hogwarts, then he would have had an education and he would've had actual prospects for his life. He would've been able to leave the Dursley's to go to Hogwarts and then he would have been able to stay free of them by providing for himself with the education he'd get.

Harry was stunned momentarily by the weight of the life he could have had.

Then his eyes began to drift over to the carriage containing the Dursley's. And he knew exactly who to blame for the loss of his future. Because they had robbed him of every other opportunity he could have had.

"They hid my Hogwarts letter, didn't they?" Harry said slowly, feeling the frustration and disappointment and everything else well up within him

Ginny shrugged glumly, "Probably," she agreed.

Harry buried his fingers in his hair and groaned inarticulately, the sound growing to a crescendo before he cut himself off, well aware of his royal audience.

Then turned away from everyone and hunched over, tugging at his hair. Before he could stop himself, he burst out, "If only my parents hadn't died in that carriage accident! I could have had a magical childhood and gone to Hogwarts and met other people like me–" then he forced himself to stop. He doubted that anyone here cared to listen to him indulge in a ridiculous fantasy.

"Carriage accident?" King Arthur asked, with a strange note in his voice. "James and Lily Potter die in a carriage accident? Wherever did you hear that," he began to ask, before he glanced over at the carriage.

"Never mind," he said disgustedly, "I can guess where you heard that. Well, I can tell you that that was a blatant lie. James and Lily Potter were war heroes. I personally awarded them Orders of Merlin, Second Class posthumously for their efforts to protect the Royal Nursery. They probably saved all of my kids' lives that day," he trailed off, seeming to disappear into the memory.

"Oh, and Harry," Ginny said once it was clear that King Arthur was lost in his memory, "I've already told you that you're going to be living at the castle and learning magic from me. But I should also tell you that you're the person I chose from the Ball."

Harry's face must have betrayed some of his panic at this, because she rushed to reassure him with, "Obviously, we have to get to know each other before we can get married. Really the Ball was just the beginning of our courting, if you accept my formal request that I'll have to issue later. But, I really think you might be the one for me, and hopefully I'll be the one for you."

Harry couldn't even begin to process all of this on top of everything else that had happened that day. The Dursley's were under arrest, he had magic, his parents had died heroes, and Ginny wanted to court him.

He sat down, _hard_, on the front steps and buried his face in his hands. He allowed himself a moment to regroup, then, from between his fingers, he muttered, "It's too much. You've done too much for me."

Ginny sat down next to him and started rubbing circles onto his back. As gentle as she was, he couldn't help flinching when her hand hit a bruise. She immediately pulled her hand away.

Harry felt bad that he'd worried her. It wasn't even that the bruises hurt that much anymore, he was just unaccustomed to gentle touch, especially unexpected touch. He pulled his hands slightly away from his face, so he could speak without muffling his words, and said, "It's alright, Ginny, they really don't hurt that much anymore, I just wasn't expecting you to touch me."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt or startle you," Ginny said.

"It's alright, really. Just– try and warn me?" Harry said, a little nervously. He still couldn't fully believe that Ginny would want to be near him, let alone want to touch him. And here she was apologizing for doing so.

"Do you mind if I help you up now?" She asked.

It took a moment for Harry to sort through what she was saying. It seemed that the emotion and action of the day was catching up to him, and his brain was beginning to move sluggishly. He blinked slowly then nodded and said, "That's alright."

He had meant it to mean that he could get up on his own, but then Ginny gently grasped his elbow and pulled him upright. She kept her gentle grip on his elbow and lead him over to where her horse was hitched. Harry ended up being quite glad that she had guided him, because his exhaustion began to crash over him in waves.

And he was still in shock over everything he had learned that day.

As Ginny helped pull him onto her horse, into the saddle, Harry distantly heard the king and queen offer to find someone that had known his parents personally to tell him about them. Harry found himself nodding automatically.

He felt Ginny's chest vibrate against his as she said, "You must be tired, Harry, if you want to nap while we ride, I'll make sure you don't fall off."

Harry nodded gratefully, then realized that she couldn't see it from where she was seated in the saddle in front of him. "Thank you," he managed to say.

The last thing he remembered from that day was Ginny saying that she was going to help him be comfortable, then reaching behind him and pulling him forward so his head was resting on her shoulder. Then Harry thought he heard her tell him that he still owed her a kiss just before he fell asleep, loosely holding onto her with a sense of peace settling into his limbs for the first time in his memory.

* * *

AN: there is a sequel to this! it's on my profile called "Around the Christmas Tree" and the writing is consistently better in that fic than it is in this one :D


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